Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  “But—”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the watch captain needing further orders on how to deal with the fifty or so Britons making that racket outside the south gate.

  Fabius, whose job it was to give those orders, looked at Ruso and the watch captain and the closed gates as if searching for some hint about how to proceed. Ruso hoped he was not going to do something stupid. He wished the Britons would shut up. They were not helping.

  Fabius asked if they were armed.

  “Just a few farm tools, sir.” The watch captain’s growl made him sound more authoritative than his centurion. “And they’ve got women and children and old people out there.”

  Fabius looked relieved. “Just ignore them unless they attack.”

  The watch captain, who might have been hoping that his centurion would take charge of the situation, left with the paltry consolation that whatever went wrong from now on, everyone would know it was Fabius’s fault.

  “Daminius is a decent man,” Ruso continued when the watch captain was out of earshot. “He’ll want to help you catch a child snatcher.”

  “If there is one,” snapped Fabius. “If this isn’t some plot the natives have cooked up between them. Taking revenge on your ill-judged search party. I’ve had enough of your bright ideas, Ruso. I want some authorization. We’ll need to get a message through to the camp.”

  “I’ll do that,” Ruso promised, wondering why Fabius was talking as if the fort were under siege. Since the riot outside the south gate could be seen from the main road, it was more likely to be the officers at the camp who were under siege, surrounded by passersby now clamoring to tell them about the excitement. “I’m going across there for a clinic anyway.”

  Fabius’s eyes widened. “If you go out there, I can’t promise my men can protect you.”

  “It’s only a rabble of native families,” Ruso assured him, wondering as he said it whether people had assumed the same thing about Boudica and her warriors. “If we send the father and brother home with a promise of action, they’ll probably disperse.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “They’ve got children with them,” said Ruso, who was not going to encourage any hint of using force. “I doubt they’ll want to stay long.” He hoped he was right. It made sense to him that any self-respecting mother would want to get her children home for supper and bedtime. The trouble was, women—even self-respecting ones—did not always behave in the way one predicted. “Can you get Daminius’s search party assembled for questioning and make sure they don’t talk to anybody?”

  “You seem to think I’m some sort of incompetent, Ruso.”

  “Can you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. By then I’ll have spoken to the tribune and we’ll know what he wants us to do.”

  With luck, it would be something useful.

  Chapter 30

  Peering through the gap between the gates, Ruso could see a thin vertical slice of the crowd that had gathered outside. He caught a glimpse of a brightly dressed woman with a toddler and a baby in her arms, and a young man in a muddy farmworker’s tunic. The Britons had sat down on the stone surface of the causeway that carried the road across the ditch, perhaps more to keep their backsides dry than to block the access, since they must know they were obstructing only one of the routes into the fort. Shifting sideways to change his angle of vision—which was annoyingly narrow—he saw a small girl sitting cross-legged in front of a toothless creature with straggly white hair. He had to admit that Fabius had been right to ignore them.

  He nodded to the guard to lift the bar. The chant disintegrated into yelling as one of the heavy gates swung partly open. A barrage of missiles splattered against it: rotten apples, cabbage stalks, clods of earth.

  Senecio limped forward. As he stepped outside something flew past his ear. Behind him, one of the guards swore. Ruso turned to see the remains of an egg sliding down the shoulder plates of the man’s armor. The stench made him gasp. Tilla stepped away, holding her nose.

  The barrage stopped. Senecio was leaning on his stick and holding up one hand for silence. Then he thanked them for coming. “It is a comfort to have good neighbors at a time like this.”

  Someone shouted, “Where’s Branan?”

  Senecio shook his head. “We do not know. The soldiers say they did not—”

  His words were lost beneath the protest. He held up his hand again until the outcry of accusation and disbelief died down. “The soldiers will search their forts and land, and will ask questions of the—”

  Ruso’s concentration stumbled over the unknown word that must mean suspects or culprits, and he lost the thread of what was being said. When he picked it up again Senecio was, as agreed, asking them to go to their homes. “I beg you to think,” he said. “Think where a thief might have hidden my son. Ask your neighbors if anyone has seen him. And search. Search your buildings, your fields, the woods and commons . . .” His voice faltered. He gulped a breath, steadied himself and continued. “Search the streams around your land. Ask everyone. Somebody . . . somebody must have seen Branan.”

  Conn stepped forward and took his father’s arm. “My brother has been missing since late yesterday afternoon,” he said. “You know what he looks like. Nine years old, brown curly hair, front teeth that do not touch each other. He is wearing a green work tunic and brown trousers and boots.”

  Another voice yelled, “Great Andraste, take revenge on the Romans!”

  There were cries of agreement. Others chimed in with “String them all up!” and one with more imagination shouted, “Gut them and feed them to the dogs!”

  Conn held up his hand. “That comes later. First, we find my brother.”

  The crowd, given something to do, began to disperse just as Ruso had hoped. The old man leaned on his stick and surveyed them. “Many good people are searching for my boy,” he said. “It is a bitter thing to be too lame to join them.”

  Ruso said, “Is there anything more we can do to help? Can we take you home?”

  “We have our own cart,” Conn told him. “They wouldn’t let us bring it in.” He put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Perhaps there will be news at the house.”

  Senecio gently lifted his son’s hand. “Go,” he said. “Enica is waiting at home. Tell her until he is found, my place is here.”

  Ruso and Tilla exchanged a glance. “Grandfather,” she said, “the soldiers will do everything that can be done here. Conn is right: You should be at home.”

  The old man lifted his head and looked at everyone standing around him. He said to Tilla, “Daughter of Lugh, see to it that nobody harms my wife.” Then he turned and limped back inside the fort. Mercifully Fabius had the sense not to object, and the guards, lacking any instructions, stood back to let him pass.

  Conn watched him go for a moment, then turned on his heel and strode toward the waiting cart, where the nondescript woman from the farm stood holding the head of the mule. By the time he reached it, he was surrounded by supporters.

  Ruso was suddenly aware of his wife standing beside him. She slipped her hand into his and whispered, “I have to go with them. Pray for us all.” Then she ran out after the cart.

  When she reached it there was some sort of argument, with Conn seemingly trying to turn her away and Tilla insisting. Conn was no match for Tilla, and Ruso was not surprised when she finally clambered onto the cart to join them. He just hoped the rest of the locals would accept her. This could easily turn into the sort of situation where everyone had to be on one side or the other.

  Meanwhile, he hoped that wherever Branan was the gods would look kindly upon him, and that Branan would sense the desperation of all the people who were trying to bring him safely home.

  Chapter 31

  “You can’t leave him there, Ruso!”

  “I didn’t put him there.” Ruso had been surprised at the agility with which the aging Senecio had lowered himself onto his blanket. He
was now hunched opposite the entrance to the HQ building. It was impossible for anyone to enter or leave without being aware of the old man’s gaze upon them.

  Fabius said, “He’s in the middle of the road.”

  “Move him, then. I’ve got to find Accius and I’m late for clinic at the camp.”

  “But what—”

  Whatever complaint Fabius was about to make died in his throat. The gates had screeched open again and a group of riders was making its way in. At the head of them was the distinctively straight-backed and scowling Tribune Accius.

  Ruso sighed. He must be almost an hour late by now. There would be a line of disconsolate patients grumbling about him over at the camp, and the staff would be wondering if they had been forgotten. He put down his medical case and saluted. As he did so, someone shouted a warning, and a mule cart changed course to avoid the old man sitting in the street.

  The tribune glared at Ruso and Fabius over the ears of his horse and demanded to know what the hell was going on. “I was told you had a hundred natives hammering on the gates and chanting war songs.”

  “We’ve managed to disperse them, sir,” said Fabius.

  “But you did have?”

  Ruso said, “About fifty, sir, including women and children.”

  “Why in the name of Jupiter didn’t you send someone to get me out of my meeting?” He sounded disappointed, as if he had missed the excitement. The cavalrymen with him would be annoyed too. They would have been hoping to see some action.

  Ruso said, “I was on my way across to tell you, sir.”

  “Centurion, is that a native sitting in the middle of the via principalis?”

  Fabius confirmed that it was. “His son is missing, sir.”

  “How is his getting run over going to help?”

  “He’s made a vow, sir,” Ruso tried to explain. “He will neither leave the fort nor eat nor set foot indoors until his son is found.”

  Accius stared at Ruso as if he were not sure he had heard correctly, then slid down from his horse. He took his helmet off and handed it to the groom who ran up to take the reins. “You first, Ruso,” he said, leading the way to HQ past the watching form of Senecio. “From the beginning.”

  On the whole, Ruso felt later, Accius took it rather well. He sent urgent messages to the legate and neighboring units, and instantly grasped the importance of getting the search party to account for their movements yesterday. He also arranged for warnings to slave traders and their agents to look out for a stolen child. “Fabius, get those men rounded up. They’re not to speak to each other or anyone else until I join you to question them.”

  Fabius did not look sorry to be sent away.

  “Ruso, I want you here for a moment, then go and see to your patients and come straight back. Remind me what the name is again.”

  “Branan, sir.”

  “Not the boy: the father. Why haven’t I met him? I thought we knew everyone with influence around here?”

  “Senecio, sir. He’s a farmer. And a poet. My wife knows him. You may have heard about him singing to the trees.”

  “Ah. The crazy one.”

  “Not crazy, sir.” At least, not before one of his three sons was killed and another stolen. Now, who knew? “He’s just very traditional.”

  Ruso was acutely aware of the average officer’s failure to grasp how the locals saw things, which meant they often ended up negotiating with the wrong people. They would not bother with poets. If Rome were under threat, a general might quote a few lines of Virgil to rally the troops, but he was unlikely to rush to the Forum to enlist the help of some modern scribbler reciting his latest composition. “They hold the knowledge of their tribe in their memories,” he explained. “And they put together the latest events in verse. They’re like sort of . . . announcers and libraries rolled into one. They believe spoken words have great power.”

  “This is why I want you along, Ruso. Local knowledge. Mixing with the natives.”

  “Sir, I don’t—”

  “You wanted to search for somebody. You can search for this one. Get someone to cover your medical duties and I’ll ask Pertinax to lend you to me.”

  Ruso took a deep breath. Despite trying to learn his wife’s language, his energies had been concentrated not on understanding British habits but on weaning her away from them. Recent attempts to mix with the natives had been like leaping into a vast pit of ignorance and finding it filled with many more ways of getting things wrong than most of his comrades could possibly imagine. “I don’t know a lot, sir. And I’m not popular with them.”

  “Never mind. You’re the only officer we’ve got with British connections. You speak the language: You’ll know what they’re really saying. If they want to find the child, they’ll deal with you, like you or not.”

  “There are Britons in the ranks, sir.”

  “I don’t want a Briton. I want one of us. Cheer up. This isn’t as bad as Eboracum.”

  Privately Ruso thought it could turn out to be a lot worse than Eboracum.

  “You never did tell me exactly what went on there.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Ruso, who had no intention of telling him.

  “Still, with luck this won’t spread any further. After we executed the last lot of troublemakers, the tribes went back to loathing each other even more than they loathe us.”

  Again the failure to understand. “Sir, I think people tend to unite against a child snatcher.”

  Accius gave a sigh of exasperation. “What’s the matter with the man, luring a child away from his family? I mean, if he wants a boy, why can’t he damn well pay for one, like a normal person?”

  “There is this business of the body in the wall, sir.”

  Accius raised one eyebrow.

  Aware that the tribune was not going to like this, Ruso continued: “Branan’s name was mentioned as the person who put the story about. It’s an odd coincidence.”

  “I’ll make some inquiries,” Accius promised. “But I very much doubt it’s anything to do with that. If our people arrest someone to make an example, they don’t do it secretly.”

  “No, sir. What if whoever put the body there found out that Branan had seen it happen?”

  Accius made a noise in his throat that suggested impatience. “That would only make sense if there really were a body, Ruso.”

  Ruso shifted the weight of his medical case, wishing he had sent Gallus over to the camp to act in his place.

  “So your theory,” continued Accius, “is that one of our men snatched a child because the child had seen him putting a dead body inside the emperor’s latest building project?”

  Put that way, it sounded ridiculous. And yet . . . “I can’t see any other logical conclusion, sir.”

  “Then keep looking. And don’t breathe a word of your pet theory to anyone else.”

  “Sir, the natives are bound to work it out for themselves.”

  “Well, don’t help them. We have enough troubles with the wall as it is. Now let’s see if I can pacify the mad poet.”

  It was an odd encounter, like one of those triumphant sculptures on war monuments and military tombstones, depicting a Roman soldier looming over a cowering barbarian. Ruso watched it from the corner by the granary, expecting to be called at any moment to translate. Accius stood upright in gleaming armor with a sword slung at his side. At his feet crouched an elderly native with wild white hair, clothed in a muddle of brown and gold wool. The differences went deeper: In Ruso’s experience Accius was logical, efficient, and ambitious, and he was tipped for a role in the Senate. Senecio could neither read nor write, believed in the power of poetry, saw a reason to sing to trees, and trusted that obstinacy and public suffering would help to save his son. Whatever appearances might suggest, he was not cowering: He was simply not making the effort to stand up.

  Somehow they managed to converse without help. It seemed Senecio could speak enough Latin when he wanted to.

  When they had finished, Accius gave orde
rs to one of his men and beckoned Ruso over.

  “The old man will be staying here for a while. I’ve sent for a couple of British recruits to stand there and make sure nobody flattens him.”

  Leading Ruso away out of earshot, the tribune added, “I’m not giving him the satisfaction of a fight. With luck he’ll get cold and bored and go home. But tell your staff to keep an eye on him. If he looks unwell, have him carted off to a hospital bed. I wouldn’t put it past the old goat to die on us.”

  “I’ll tell them, sir.” Ruso shifted the case back to his other hand. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “Go and see your patients and arrange some cover,” Accius told him. “Then come straight back here. I shall want you to deal with communications with the natives, so make yourself available. And don’t tell them anything unless I’ve authorized it first.”

  “Sir, they really don’t trust me.”

  “Stop fussing, Ruso. The priority is to find the boy. You said yourself: Everyone unites against a child snatcher.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, and, Ruso . . .”

  “Sir?”

  “Smarten yourself up a bit. You’re representing the Legion. We may be surrounded by barbarians, but there’s no need to look like one.”

  Chapter 32

  Neither Conn nor the woman spoke as the cart jolted them all back to the farm. Or perhaps they did, but Tilla did not notice over the voices of fear and reassurance that were chasing each other around inside her mind. As the cart drew up to the gate she realized she was holding her breath, hoping that Branan would scramble down from his favorite tree to greet them.

  Enica was crossing the yard, carrying a basket piled with logs. When she saw the cart she dropped the basket and ran forward to haul the gate open. Tilla knew immediately that there was no good news and that the woman’s look of disappointment must be mirrored on her own face.