Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  Tilla rolled over to face him. “I have wondered this. Whether he is jealous of Branan.”

  “The doted-on younger son, clever and popular, and the bitter older half brother . . .”

  “His girl snatched away by the army.”

  “What girl?”

  She said, “Did you not know?” and proceeded to relay what she admitted was gossip about the girl’s rape by a soldier during the troubles, her refusal to have the baby taken away, and a broken betrothal. “They say that is why he is so angry.”

  “Even so, why would he do this to his father?”

  She said, “For liking Branan better.”

  The reasoning made sense. The practicalities did not. “Branan was taken by a soldier.”

  “Soldiers can be bribed,” she pointed out. “Or imitated. Perhaps there may be some captured equipment still hidden in secret places after the troubles.”

  “Really?”

  She said lightly, “Who knows?”

  “Well, you do, clearly.”

  “Not near here,” she assured him.

  He let it pass. “If the soldier wasn’t really a soldier . . .”

  “I am just thinking aloud.”

  “We’ve got half the Legion chasing around searching, everybody suspecting everybody else, and the officers busy trying to work out where several thousand men were yesterday afternoon. I’d imagine if anything could make a man like Conn happy, that would be it. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “How will you do that?”

  He had never told her that Conn was under surveillance, for the very good reason that she was not supposed to know. “Sorry. It’s been a difficult day. I mean, we both need to be aware of it.”

  He wondered who was paid to inform on Conn, and whether the security people would be prepared to tell him. Suddenly Tilla said, “There is still no word of Candidus?”

  “There’s some hint of him arranging to meet a man he’d seen before, but that could be anybody.”

  “What if the same man stole both of them?”

  He frowned. “We’ve gone from Conn being jealous to some villain who’s going around, abducting random people.”

  She sighed. “Fear is a short rope. Every time I set off toward where Branan might be, I am pulled back by the feeling that I might have just turned my back on him.”

  He remembered something else. “We’re checking everyone’s movements, so I suppose I need to confirm that my pharmacist really did go away on leave.”

  “Did he know Branan?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Is he the one who said he would kill Candidus?”

  “That was a misunderstanding.”

  The argument downstairs seemed to have ended. She said, “I keep thinking about Branan.”

  “Me too. It’s the not knowing.”

  “And the fear that the knowing might be worse,” she said. “I feel as though I am swimming in a soup made of confusion. What does a child stealer look like?”

  “If you could tell by looking, we’d have caught him already.”

  He pictured Senecio lying out in the cold, worrying about his son. He tried to picture Branan but could not. He saw only the dark shape of the farm dog on the night they had first met, and heard the voice that had greeted him with, Are you the doctor? and then said with relief, Now I can go in out of the rain.

  He rolled across to her, wrapping himself around the warmth of her body. “I am sorry things went so wrong with the old man’s family.”

  “So am I.”

  He was drifting off to sleep when she wriggled.

  “The lamp,” she explained, waving an arm across him and trying to reach it.

  “I’ll do it.”

  He was almost asleep when a thought drifted across the distant horizon of his mind. It vanished as he tried to focus on it, but to his annoyance he found himself awake and alert, convinced it was something important. If only . . . What had he been thinking about just a moment ago?

  He didn’t know.

  Beside him, his wife stirred and murmured something in her sleep.

  It was definitely important. Something he should have queried earlier. If only he could get back to that state of half awareness . . .

  By the time he woke, the gray morning light was filtering round the shutter that covered the excuse for a window. His wife was sitting up beside him. She crossed her arms and lifted off her night tunic, shuddering with the cold as she did so. He paused to enjoy the view. Then, when the most interesting parts had vanished under the wrapping of her breast binding, he said, “Tell me again what Virana said about Branan.”

  Chapter 45

  The legate’s attempts to reassure his centurions at the morning briefing were overridden by the alarming fact of his presence. Usually he was based elsewhere and was only ever seen at the various camps under his command later in the day. He invited Accius to outline the plan for the day’s search, then stepped up again and emphasized the importance of not being provoked by the locals. He had spoken with their leaders, who had agreed to ask the people to stay calm. Since Ruso had never heard the locals so much as mention any leaders, he doubted that would have much effect. He listened with interest as the legate dodged the question everyone wanted answered—what would happen if the boy was not found?—and went on to announce that the curfew would remain in place tonight but that Samain celebrations would be permitted as long as the locals stayed on their own property after dark.

  It must have been a difficult decision to make. There would be no celebration in Branan’s home, but if he was not found, the Samain gatherings elsewhere would provide the ideal breeding ground for trouble. Especially once the fear of meeting the dead in the dark had been overcome by beer and bravado. On the other hand, banning them would stoke more resentment: It would be tantamount to punishing the locals for having one of their children stolen by the army.

  Ruso was glad he was only responsible for the life of one man at a time.

  Some of the other officers paused to offer a polite “Sorry about your father” to Ruso before leaving with their comrades to relay the day’s orders to the men. He waited until they had gone before he made his own contribution.

  When they heard what he had to say, the three officers who were still there looked as though they wished he had kept it to himself.

  “Why didn’t you say this before, man?” demanded the legate, who had the sort of rolling, fruity voice that only authority and an expensive education could bestow.

  “I only found out late last night, sir.” The thing that had floated over the horizon of his mind was his wife’s statement that Virana looked forward to Branan’s visits.

  “So what you’re saying,” said Accius, “is that any man who happened to have been in the bar when the boy delivered the eggs could have learned his name and made the link between him and your wife?”

  “The barmaid remembers mentioning family matters to him, sir.” It was hard to imagine a nine-year-old boy being interested in a wedding blessing, but that would not have stopped Virana from chattering about it.

  “Any man at all?” echoed Fabius, dismayed.

  The legate said, “Why didn’t we think of this earlier?”

  Fabius looked at Ruso, who in turn looked at Accius and said, “We relied too much on speculation from the natives, sir.”

  Accius said, “We’re already getting every man to account for his movements, sir.”

  “I’ll talk to the commanders of the other units,” the legate said. “The witness might have been mistaken about the kidnapper’s outfit. I’ll also put the word out amongst our own people that any man behaving suspiciously is to be reported to his centurion. Tribune, you can coordinate the lists of names.”

  A list of names was necessary and it was sensible, and Ruso knew it. He also knew he didn’t like the sound of it. Tilla had once been put on a list of suspects, and it had proved almost impossible to get her name off it until the Emperor himself had intervened to w
ipe it clean. Who was to say what constituted “suspicious” behavior? What if the accuser was simply settling an old score? Once you started along that route, there was no telling what betrayals and jealousies it would let loose—as several deeply unpopular emperors and their terrified subjects had discovered.

  Accius was speaking to him.

  “Sorry, sir?”

  “Pay attention, Ruso. See what more you can get out of the bar staff.”

  “I’ve already checked with them this morning, sir. They’re trying to remember who was there when the boy came in.” He hoped Ria was trying harder than she had been earlier. She did not seem to mind being woken before dawn with a peculiar question about egg deliveries, but she did object to not yet having an offer of compensation for filling her bar with time wasters.

  Despite being wrapped in a blanket, Ria had stepped into her house shoes and pushed her tousled hair back as if she were preparing for battle. “They’ll come in here trailing wet mud across my swept floor and smelling of sheep. They’ll take up space at my tables and buy nothing.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he had promised. Now he ventured, “Sirs, we need to pay a fee for the use of the bar.”

  “Then find somewhere else,” said Accius. “Who do these people think they are? You’d think they’d be glad to help.”

  Ruso had more success with a request for permission to seek out the latest intelligence on Conn, in case there was some native involvement.

  “Exactly as I suggested yesterday,” put in Fabius.

  Accius had the grace not to point out that he had said so too. “They may know something at Vindolanda.”

  “So,” the legate continued, “yesterday we had eight suspects. Now we have several hundred. Is there any good news?”

  “The old man’s still alive, sir,” put in Fabius. “We allowed him to sleep under the gate arch and gave him bedding, and Doctor Valens persuaded him to take some water.”

  “Well done, man,” said the legate. “We don’t want him to die on us.”

  Ruso fought down a childish demand for a share of the credit. “Are we confident the boy’s not in our custody, sir?”

  “Our people assure me they haven’t got him,” said the legate. “Security are chasing up their informers.”

  Ruso was not optimistic. Informers were mostly recruited for their ability to inform on the natives, not on the military.

  Setting off across the duckboards to return to the fort, he found himself recalling the prospect of a native wedding, once so embarrassing, with a fond sense of innocence lost.

  His nostalgia was pushed aside by a scrape of boots heralding the company of Fabius. He had expected conversation, but it seemed all Fabius wanted was not to be outside a set of ramparts on his own. They marched together in silence toward another day of searching for a stolen boy.

  Already forty or fifty natives had gathered to protest. This time they were outside the east gate, and they were trying different tactics. There was no more chanting. Instead of harassing drivers or sitting down to block the road, they had lined up on either side of it like a ragged parody of a guard of honor. Nearly all seemed to be elderly or lame. There were a couple of women with small babies. Several had even brought rough stools and boxes to sit on.

  As the two officers approached, one of the gates opened and a squad of men marched out. After yesterday’s barrage of rotten missiles, someone had sensibly ordered them to wear helmets, but nothing was thrown. The natives yelled, “Where is Branan?” and “Child stealers!” and “Give the boy back!”

  The legionaries strode on past them without a glance. Fortunately none of the natives seemed to know that Daminius and his men were back at work in the quarry.

  “A bunch like that wouldn’t frighten anybody,” Fabius observed.

  Trying to decide from a distance whether one of the protesters had a goiter or just a double chin, Ruso said, “The others will be searching,” and only as he said it did he realize what it meant. This was no spontaneous outburst of anger and concern. This was organized. The people who could do little but shout had been sent to protest. The fit and healthy would be working or searching. If the boy was not found, then whoever had arranged this would be considering the next move. Once you started to think of this whole business as a native setup, it changed everything.

  His thoughts were distracted by the solitary figure of Tilla clutching a bag that he knew held a day’s supply of food and waiting to be let in. “My wife needs to borrow a couple of horses for the search.”

  “Why don’t you try asking at the stables?” suggested Fabius, as if he were not in a position to give the order, or as if Ruso might not know where to look for a horse. “I expect they’ll have something.”

  Ruso wondered whether Daminius ever felt the same desire he was feeling now: the urge to sharpen Fabius up by poking him in the eye with his own vine stick.

  He escorted Tilla across to where Senecio had now resumed his position beside the guard in front of the HQ hall. The old man’s singing had lost much of its vigor this morning. He looked pale and weary, but if he would not eat, there was little Ruso could do about it. He left Tilla crouching beside him while he went to organize some horses. Perhaps she would get some sense into him. Better still, some food.

  He was relieved to see that of the dozen or so animals usually available, four were still in their stalls munching idly on their hay nets. They might as well not have been, though, because, according to the man in charge, “I can’t let no military property out to no civilians without no written authorization, sir.” Not, it seemed, even if Centurion Fabius already knew about it. “You never know with them natives, sir. ’Specially not the women . . .”

  At that point he noticed the look in Ruso’s eye and kept the rest of his views on natives, civilians, and women to himself.

  Ruso was not going to go running back to Fabius to ask for written permission . . . Finally he managed to get two animals released by pointing out that one of ‘them native civilian women’ was a Roman citizen, promising that he would pay for any loss or injury, and agreeing that the military property would be escorted by an armed guard.

  His negotiations failed to impress Tilla, who could not see why she and Enica needed a guard at all. “Nobody travels with me when I go to help women have babies.”

  “If you want the horse,” he told her, “you have to have the escort.”

  “He is only there to stop us from stealing your horses.” Tilla gave a delicate sniff of disdain. “Tell them we will take an unarmed man. And he must do what he is told and stay at a distance when we go to the houses. Otherwise nobody will talk to us.”

  In the end they agreed on a dour-faced stable slave with greasy hair. Ruso watched his wife and the slave ride out to collect Enica with a piebald horse trotting beside them on the leading rein. Some men might have relished the prospect of a day’s ride in the countryside with two attractive women, but clearly Tilla’s escort was not one of them.

  Ruso went to offer a pouring of wine and a swift prayer at the altar of Fortuna. Then he made his way across to the hospital. Before he returned to face Ria and her escalating demands for compensation, he needed to make sure Gallus was checking on everyone’s movements for the day before yesterday. After that he needed to clear his mind. It seemed now that practically any man who could not account for his movements might be guilty. Just like his wife, Ruso was swimming in a soup made of confusion.

  Chapter 46

  Ruso had not been greeted with such enthusiasm since the time he had performed a free clinic for any local who cared to drop in at the bathhouse over at Coria. Half a dozen people who could not find space on or around the table outside Ria’s bar were clustered about the entrance in no discernible order. As he tried to get inside, hands snatched at his tunic. Voices in Latin cried out, “Doctor!” and “Sir!” and in British, “Out of the way! Other people were here before you!”

  Inside, all the seats were taken and Ria had been right: T
here was a distinct tang of sheep. There had to be at least twenty people in there. He was pleased to note that everyone seemed to have bought drinks. That should satisfy Ria’s demands for compensation. Virana, edging her way between two tables with a tray held above her head at a precarious angle, paused to beam at him. “We’ve never been so busy, master!”

  “Any more thoughts about who was in the bar when Branan came?”

  Her face fell. “I’m sorry, master. There was only me serving and I know there were some customers but I can’t remember who.”

  He told her not to worry. He was fresh from an awkward encounter with Nisus, who had no way of proving that he had been fishing in Coria for the whole of his leave and plainly thought it was ridiculous to try.

  He had a point. People might have noticed a hunched figure staring at the water, but it was the nature of fishermen not to want to be disturbed, and Nisus would never have sought anyone out for conversation. He had correctly answered Ruso’s trick question of “Did you stay at Susanna’s?” by pointing out that Susanna did not rent out rooms. He had stayed at the Phoenix. The name meant nothing to Ruso, who had not been to Coria for a while. New businesses had popped up like mushrooms all along the border. He made a mental note to think about contacting the owner, and moved on.

  By contrast, everyone in Ria’s bar was eager to help.

  “One at a time!” he called over the hubbub, placing himself in the only available space, which was behind the counter. Catching a glimpse of Ria loading pastries onto a platter in the back room, he asked Virana to bring him a spiced wine. “Now, who was first?”

  It was exhausting and time-consuming no matter how quickly he tried to process each statement, and he had to cram his notes into smaller and smaller handwriting to fit in the available space on the tablet. Several of the informers could not understand why he was making notes at all, since they expected him to immediately summon troops and rush off to investigate their sightings. Unfortunately there were confident sightings of Branan at roughly the same time in five or six different places. “You may be right,” he explained to each one, “but I need to hear everyone.” The description of the soldier varied from the hopelessly vague to the startlingly implausible, in which the kidnapper was hiding his features behind a full-face cavalry parade helmet. He tried to push aside the suspicion that this was all part of a native plot to hide the truth.