by Ruth Downie
To her right, at the end of the alleyway, a wide street paved in stone ran parallel to the high outer wall of the fort. A crow, suddenly alarmed, opened its wings and flapped away from the top of the wall. Two sentries appeared, walking along a high path set behind the top rows of stones. They passed without showing any sign of noticing her.
It struck her that she was the only person in her family who had ever been welcomed behind the walls of a Roman fort. The thought of the gate pass in the leather purse strung on her belt made her feel uneasy. It was not an honorable thing to be trusted by the legions. Throats had been cut for less. And yet, the medicus had made it so easy for her to escape! It must be the work of the goddess, who was more powerful than the gods of the Romans, even though she had hidden her face from her people for such a long time. The goddess was helping her to escape. Chloe had finally told her what little the girls knew about the loss of Saufeia. Tilla had not made the same mistakes. As for what had happened to Asellina: That was a mystery. But the goddess must know. The goddess would protect her.
Tilla pursed her lips and allowed herself a moment of pity for the medicus, powerless before the will of the one who had chosen to answer her prayers. The medicus had treated her well. She would serve him as best she could in the few days she had left here. She would do what she could to cheer up that dreadful house. In the meantime, she would find out how to cook something.
47
The third morning of Valens's absence dawned to the sound of musical weather. Walking through the fort, a listener could enjoy the sound of water drumming on roofs and splashing from the eaves, streams tinkling down gutters, drains gurgling and backing up. Inside the hospital were the complex rhythms of leaks dripping at different speeds punctuated with the occasional ping where the staff had placed metal basins because they had run out of buckets. It had been raining since before dawn, as Ruso well knew since he had been called out while it was still dark. Everywhere with a working brazier now smelled of wet wool hung up to dry. Adding to the cheerless mood of the staff was the knowledge that the planned modernization of the hospital building had receded by another day as the weather held up the work over at the bathhouse. Even Priscus's powers, it seemed, had not extended beyond getting his own office ceiling dried out.
Ruso was dictating notes to Albanus in a mood of grim determination when the morning porter interrupted to announce a visitor. Ruso's temper did not improve when the visitor turned out to be the civilian liaison officer, come to ask if he could borrow Valens's hunting net.
"On a day like this?"
"We're making an early start in the morning. Just me and a few friends. Why don't you join us?"
"I'm busy," said Ruso. "Valens is away."
"Oh, sorry. I suppose you are. We're busy too, you know. Not like you, of course. Our work isn't life or death. Well, not usually."
"No."
"And frankly, if we do anything too fast, it just encourages them. They're supposed to take responsibility for themselves, you know."
"Yes."
"But of course they don't. Sometimes I wonder what they have a town council for. Anything that isn't keeping the drains clean and organizing jolly festivals gets sent to us. Widows who've had their prize goat stolen. Shopkeepers who've been punched on the nose by a soldier they can't quite identify. Natives who-"
His flow was interrupted by a knock on the door. "What do you want?" he demanded of the orderly whose head appeared around the door.
The orderly glanced at Ruso and then back at the liaison officer as if not sure which of them he was supposed to be addressing. "Another visitor for the doctor, sir."
"They all want an immediate investigation, you know," concluded the liaison officer, lifting his wet cloak from his arm and slinging it round his shoulders. "And it's always when I'm on duty. Oh by the way, I put your Claudius Innocens on the second spear's list for a little chat."
"He'll have to move fast. Innocens travels around."
"Really? Well, if we don't catch him this time, we'll nab him when he comes back."
Ruso turned his attention to the orderly. "Who wants me now? I'm trying to get some work done."
"It seems to be a native girl, sir. We would have sent her away, but she's insisting on seeing you."
Ruso sighed. "Send her in."
Tilla appeared, busy rubbing her hair with a towel. Her shawl had done little to prevent the rain soaking into the blue tunic that was now clinging to her with an appealing precision that Ruso did his best to ignore. Her feet were muddy up to the ankles.
The liaison officer looked her up and down as they passed in the doorway, then paused to address Ruso from the corridor. "I meant to say earlier," he said, "glad to hear you found your cook. Very nice. I'll look forward to an invitation."
"Do," said Ruso, calling after him, "wait till you try her soup!" He turned his attention to Tilla. "Who gave you a towel?"
She frowned. "Tall, thin, old. His hair…" She paused, then raised her hand in a gesture Ruso recognized.
"Officer Priscus, sir," put in Albanus.
"I see," said Ruso, not altogether pleased at the thought of Priscus sniffing round Tilla. "Is there a problem?"
"I need money, Master."
He saw that she was trying not to shiver. "I gave you money the other day."
"Is spent."
"What-all of it?"
She nodded, slung the towel over her shoulder, and began to count on her fingers. "Bread, apples, onions, carrots, eggs, milk-"
"All right," he interrupted. "I haven't got time for a shopping list."
He loosened the strings of his purse and tipped a quantity of pitifully small coins into his hand. "Take this," he said, adding something he remembered Claudia saying, "I shall expect an account at the end of the week." As she bent to pick the coins out of his palm, he realized that the tails of her plaits were dripping. He could not imagine how long it would take to dry that much hair in a climate like this, and so far she had only walked the short distance from the house.
Moments later he watched his own cloak walk out of the surgery with Tilla underneath it. At least part of her would stay dry. He hoped she would not catch a serious chill before he could afford to buy her some footwear.
"Her name is Tilla," he said, turning to his clerk. "If I'm out I may leave the key at the desk for her to collect."
"Yes, sir."
"And wipe that silly grin off your face, Albanus. Anybody'd think you'd never seen a housekeeper before."
48
By the fourth morning of her stay with the medicus, Tilla had begun to wonder if he lived this way by choice. She had the floors of the usable rooms clear, the mess stacked up in the driest part of the empty room, and the mice in retreat. She had found the best snack shop in Deva, and slipped into Merula's for a quick lesson with the cook while both doormen were out escorting the girls to the baths. Her repertoire was not extensive, but it was edible. Omelette. Poached salmon. Sausages. Boiled cabbage. Porridge. Stewed pears. Baked apples with honey drizzled into the space where the core had been. Yesterday, after the rain had stopped, she had shoved all the dirty clothes in the house into a bag and lugged them out along the Eboracum road to the laundry. Then, feeling she deserved a rest, she and the dog had finished off the beer stored in the dining room. It had been kept too long anyway-but even this the medicus did not appear to notice. He seemed to have no interest in anything beyond eating, working, and sleeping.
Asked what the names of the dogs were, he looked as if he had never thought of that before. They had no names, he said. The bitch belonged to the man who had lived in the house before his colleague. She said, "The pups are old enough to leave," but all he said was, "Good," as if he hoped they would go off and find new homes by themselves.
When he was at home-which was not often-he ate, and then retreated to his room, or sat hunched on the couch scraping rows of figures into a writing tablet, pausing to add the numbers up with a frown that deepened the crease between his e
yebrows. Last night he had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. His chin was growing darker each day. It was another thing he did not appear to notice.
As far as Tilla could tell the medicus did not have a woman, but her fears that she would be expected to fill the space had been unfounded. He had made no approach. Maybe he did not like women. Maybe, like many doctors, he was Greek. Everyone knew about the Greeks. But in the past she had caught him looking at her in a way that was not at all Greek. Perhaps he was just too busy. Whatever the reason, she was glad of it. The goddess was watching over her.
She finished laying the kindling in the kitchen hearth. She dampened the grubby bandage around her right hand-she had no wish to set herself aflame-unwrapped the fire steel and prayed for success before settling the dry fragments of scorched lint in the middle of the tinder and bringing the steel down onto the flint. For the first time since she had been forced to do this left-handed, one of the sparks caught straight away. Breathing gently on the glowing edges of the lint, she prayed again for what she was about to do.
She had wondered many times why she had been saved. Visiting Merula's this morning, she had found out. There were now eleven days before her arm would be freed from the splints, so ten days more in the service of the medicus. Ten days in which to perform the new task the goddess had given her.
Tilla fed the tiny fire with dried grass and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling.
49
"Jupiter Optimus Maximus!" muttered Ruso blasphemously, I pausing in the doorway of the house and wondering whether to walk away again. It had been one of those days when Aesculapius had not been on his side. A bad day for the doctor and a worse one for his patients, whose sufferings had included emergency abdominal surgery that was unlikely to succeed, the extraction of a glass splinter from an eye, and the amputation of an infected foot. He was supervising the cautery of the stump by a nervous junior medic when an orderly interrupted to tell him there were five stretchers in the hall, bearing the victims of a loading crane that had broken loose down at the docks. In the midst of this no one thought to mention the retired trumpeter who had come in complaining of chest pains and who was only brought to Ruso's attention after he had dropped dead on the floor of the admissions hall. As soon as the man's distraught wife had stopped shrieking at Ruso and been escorted away in tears, someone tapped him on the shoulder and whispered that the surgical patient had died and Officer Priscus was conducting an urgent review of admissions procedures.
Ruso spoke to the comrades of the abdomen patient, saw to it that he was properly laid out, and went home for dinner.
He took a deep breath and entered the house. The sound of a meandering melody came from the kitchen. Exactly what his servant was doing in there-other than singing-was a mystery to Ruso, who flung open the door and demanded, "What on earth is that stink?"
The singing faltered to a halt. Tilla, flushed from leaning over whatever was boiling in the blackened pan above the coals, observed, "My Lord is home early."
He said, "Is that my dinner?"
By way of answer she pointed toward a shelf beyond the reach of the dogs. A coiled string of pink, glistening sausages were an unwelcome reminder of today's abdominal surgery.
"Dinner," she explained. "Soon." There were damp wisps of hair stuck to her forehead.
Ruso returned his gaze to the coals. An unpleasant suspicion began to grow. "Tilla, are you boiling socks in the same pan that you cook in?"
She shook her head vigorously. "I do not boil socks."
"It had better not be another one of your British recipes."
She glanced back at the pan as if she were wondering whether to lie to him, then drew herself up to her full height, looked him in the eye, and said, "Is medicine, Master."
Medicine? Ruso sighed. He was tired of medicine. He was not interested in medicine. He had come here seeking respite from other people's troubles and the last thing he wanted was a sick person in his own house. Mustering his sense of duty, he said, "Do you need something else for your arm?"
"No, Master."
"Is there another problem I should know about?"
"No, Master. I make dinner now."
"Good. Give that pot a thorough scrub before you use it again."
Those eyes were looking straight at him. The expression in them was not one of cooperation.
"Medicine is a tricky business, Tilla," he told her. "It isn't a case of boiling up a few weeds. You could end up poisoning yourself. I work with pharmacists who have trained for years, and even they don't get it right all the time."
She turned away from him, gave the pan a vigorous stir, and banged the spoon on the rim.
Ruso rubbed his hand over his tired eyes. He was being defied. He needed to do something about it. The something was probably not picking his servant up, shaking her, and roaring, "I want my dinner!" So instead he said with all the calm he could muster, "If you are ill, you must tell me about it. I am your doctor."
"Yes, Master."
"Are you ill?" Please, almighty gods, let it not be something female and complicated…
"No, Master."
"Good." He reached for the cloth that was lying on the table and wound the ends around his hands. "Open the door," he ordered, gripping the hot metal handles through the cloth and lifting the pan carefully off the coals. Beneath the steam was a greenish black goo that heaved and spat as a final bubble came to the surface.
She followed him outside and stood on the gravel of the alley in her bare feet as he tipped the pot over the bonfire patch. The pan clanged as he scraped out the last vestiges of goo with the wooden spoon. Seeing her standing there with her good arm folded over her bad one-he must change that bandage, it was filthy-he wondered if she had been conducting some bizarre magic ritual in his kitchen. Best not to ask. He said, "You have done good work tidying the house, Tilla."
"Yes, Master."
"But I don't want to catch you making medicine again, do you understand?"
"You will not, Master."
It only dawned on him later, as he sat down in front of a dish of sausages shortly to be followed by a bowl of boiled cabbage and an apple (a three-course dinner!) that this was not an entirely satisfactory reply.
50
Valens returned full of tales of wild and wily tribesmen and how he had impressed both the locals and the officers by curing a fever in the hairy chieftain's youngest son. The next morning Ruso gave him a swift summary of the current hospital cases, told him to ask his friend at HQ if he wanted to know anything about the latest body, then escaped to enjoy some time off and catch up on some of the things he had been meaning to do for days. He did not want to waste most of the rare sunny weather standing in the line at the barber's, so while he waited for a shave he strolled down the street and dropped in to a weaver's shop to inquire about the cost of woolen trousers.
He pushed his foot down inside the hole for the second leg, disten-tangled his boot at the far end, and tugged the rough wool up around his waist. Holding everything in place with the spare fabric bunched in his fist, he tried a few experimental steps across the shop floor.
They seemed ludicrously baggy compared to riding breeches. "Are they supposed to be like this?"
"If you just fasten your belt around the top, sir…"
"I look like a bloody native."
"A lot of gentlemen lace their boots up around the legs and pop in a bit of sheepskin, sir. You'll find them very comfortable in the cold weather. Much warmer than leather."
Ruso rubbed his growth of beard and looked down at his toes. His ankles were hidden under the rust-colored wool that was already beginning to irritate his skin in unaccustomed places. He felt ridiculous dressed like this, but Valens had recommended this man and Valens, he had to admit, usually looked surprisingly well turned out for one so disorganized. Presumably when the cold set in, the two of them would look no more outlandish than anyone else.
He glanced out of the doorway in the vague hope of seeing someon
e dressed like himself. Instead, he saw a young woman walking past, carrying a faded blue military cloak draped over a loaded shopping basket. A young woman with curly fair hair, a bandaged arm, and bare feet. A young woman for whom he had only this morning asked the cobbler to set aside a pair of second-hand boots, and who needed to try them on. She was heading out of town and he guessed she was on the way to the laundry.
"I'll take them," announced Ruso.
"I can show you some other fabrics," offered the weaver, with the sudden anxiety of a man who suspects he could have sold something more expensive.
"They're fine. You can send me the bill care of the hospital." Payday was in less than a week, which was why Ruso now felt it was safe to buy a few small necessities.
"If you'd just like to slip them off-"
"I'll wear them," declared Ruso, pausing only to scribble his signature on the bill before snatching up his belt and hurrying out of the shop.
When he reached the street Tilla was already too far ahead for him to attract her attention without bellowing down the street like a drill sergeant. Acutely aware of the trousers flapping around his ankles with every step, Ruso decided to catch up with her when she stopped at the laundry, which was the only possible place where she could have any business out here. He passed the clanging din of a metalworker's shop where a display of pots and pans swinging in the breeze sounded a chaotic chorus over the steady rhythm of the hammer. Beyond it were a few tumbledown houses, which might have been pleasantly positioned on the edge of town were it not for the stench that was already hinting at the nearness of his destination. He stepped aside for an ancient veteran shuffling along on two sticks, then looked up and realized she must have crossed over to walk in the sunshine. She was hidden by a heavy cart rumbling past in the middle of the street.
The owner of the laundry was taking advantage of the sunshine too. The yard was crisscrossed with loaded washing lines. Navigating by smell, he ducked to avoid being slapped in the face by a sheet and turned left to make the customary contribution in the Vespasianus. Gazing down into the yellow depths, he reflected that the greatest of men could be brought low by one simple act of stupidity. The general who had conquered much of Britannia, stifled a Jewish revolt, and risen to the rank of emperor was chiefly remembered for his attempt to put a tax on public pisspots. His musings were interrupted by a more practical thought: He had not checked for any exit arrangements in the trousers. Perhaps he had better practice in private first. Turning on his heel, he ducked back around the flapping sheets and into the steamy atmosphere of the laundry to meet his slave.