Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  Chapter 50

  “Face it, Ruso,” Valens said, checking the apple for maggot holes before chopping it in two on the scarred surface of the operating table and handing half of it over. “You’re not thinking straight. I grant you he’s not the friendliest of characters, but it’s a bit much to imagine he spent his leave abducting and murdering people.”

  “I’m not imagining anything,” Ruso told him. “The orders are to pin everyone down. Nisus left on the day that Candidus disappeared, and he came back the day after Branan vanished. I’ve already sent a message to the Phoenix. I’m just asking you to keep an eye on him.”

  Valens flicked an apple seed onto the floor. “There must be a quicker way to do this than eliminating several thousand men one by one. Gallus has already wasted half the morning asking all the staff where they were the day before yesterday and then checking it. Besides, what if the chap who took the boy has deserted? It’s not much use knowing his name if we don’t know where he is.”

  “There would be a quicker way,” Ruso told him, “if Virana could remember who was in the bar when Branan delivered the eggs.”

  “Will it help if I ask her?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve just come from there and she’s upset enough as it is.” Although she had been pleasantly surprised by Conn’s visit to thank her for her help. “He’s not nasty, really,” she explained while marveling at his change of heart. “It’s just that nobody understands him.”

  “I have to say,” Valens observed, leaning back on the sill of the window, “that it’s lucky I was over at the baths with about forty people when the boy went. I’m not sure how well I could account for my movements most of the time. Could you?”

  Ruso, his mouth full of apple, was chewing his way through to stating, “I’m never alone!” when it occurred to him that this was not true. Most of the time he felt besieged by patients and staff and rarely escaped except to fall asleep or spend time with his wife—often both at the same time. But he frequently traveled alone from one place of work to another. Although his time, like that of everyone else, was marked by the trumpet calls, anything between them was guesswork. How could he prove that he had gone straight from one location to another? Conversely, if he chose to “lose” some time in between two of them, who would notice?

  “It’s a messy business,” he observed. “And all the time we’re looking, the boy could be getting further away.”

  “Do you remember playing that game with the blindfold?” Valens asked. “You know, the one where you blindfold someone and tell him to find certain people in the room, but everybody keeps tiptoeing about from place to place, so that no matter how hard he tries, he never finds them unless they want him to?”

  “No,” said Ruso, trying to picture Valens as a child.

  “Really?” His friend sounded genuinely surprised. “Of course, it was much more fun when there were girls playing.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And plenty of wine.”

  “Is this happy memory supposed to help?”

  “I thought it might help to express the situation you find yourself in.”

  “Not just me,” Ruso pointed out. “All of us. Except that one of us is only pretending to wear the blindfold.”

  Ruso stood in the street outside the hospital and realized he had done everything he could think of. There had been no new messages at the bar to follow up on. No wife, either, but waiting for him instead was a very large bill that he promised to deal with later. Deal with. Not pay. Ria could make of that what she would.

  He had spoken briefly with Senecio and told him that there was no news, which was at least better than bad news, but not by much. It was surprising how easily everyone seemed to have grown used to the sight of the old man sitting there. He had noticed the guard twitching the toes of one foot at regular intervals, as if he were singing a song in his head to relieve the boredom. Beside him, Senecio might as well have been a broken-down vehicle awaiting repair or removal.

  Ruso had filled a whole morning with activities that were supposed to help rescue Branan, and none of them seemed to have achieved anything. Valens was right: This one-at-a-time thing was hopeless. He straightened his belt and his tunic, checked his bootlaces, ran both hands through his hair, and went to see if Accius had any better ideas. Or any ideas at all.

  Inside the HQ, Accius was gathering up his cloak. With him was a man whom Ruso had seen before but never spoken to. He had a thick neck and cropped iron-gray hair. There was something vaguely bovine about his slow, deliberate movements and the way he breathed heavily through his nose. He looked like a man not easily distracted from his task. With a neck like that, he was probably also a man who snored, although Ruso never knew how men like that managed to sleep at all. Were their dreams haunted by the screams of their victims?

  Accius caught sight of him. “Any news, Doctor?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Go and find out how the natives are getting on. Come and find me in a couple of hours and we’ll see where we’ve got to.” Accius turned to the questioner. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lead the way, then.” The tribune’s expression was set in a manner that suggested he was about to face an unpleasant task.

  Ruso asked, “Is Optio Daminius in the clear now, sir?”

  Accius looked him in the eye. “No. Thanks to you, we now know the optio is lying about where he went that afternoon. Go away, Ruso.”

  They made an odd couple as they turned immediately right outside the HQ building: the heavy questioner and the upright aristocrat who might one day be a highly respectable senator charged with approving legislation. Ruso, watching from beneath the covered walkway of the barrack block, knew he should stay out of this. He should let whatever was going to happen happen. He had no authority to question it, and besides, Accius had probably wrestled with his own conscience anyway—not about the pain, but about the illegality.

  The men turned right again almost immediately before the granary. Ruso reached the corner of the granary just in time to see them turn in at the entrance to the workshops. He knew exactly why he had been sent away. Accius was trying to make sure none of his officers could be accused of being complicit in the application of torture to a serving soldier.

  It was a peculiar form of decency. Sacrificing one’s principles for the sake of the child. If only Ruso could convince himself that the result would be worth it.

  A voice in his head said, So, can you think of anything else to try?

  He couldn’t. Daminius had lied. He was a responsible and ambitious young officer, he knew how important this was, and he had lied.

  A dozen or so men in rough working tunics came out of the maintenance yard. They formed up and marched off in the direction of the barracks. So the workshops had been emptied of their regular occupants. Ruso could smell the furnace.

  Ruso flattened himself against the wall of the wheelwright’s store, feeling the waft of warm air on his skin. In the gloom of the smithy, the glow of the burning charcoal picked out dark stripes and curves against the far wall. He understood now why the questioner seemed to have brought no equipment. Hanging there were all the implements anyone could possibly need to loosen a man’s tongue. He felt his own tunic prickle with sweat.

  A confused shuffle of footsteps was coming toward him down the street. He stepped back into the wheelwright’s shop until the footsteps had passed. When he looked again, a barefoot and gagged figure was standing in the yard, surrounded by four men. Ruso did not recognize the guards. They were certainly not from the Twentieth. Accius was not going to risk a mutiny by putting Daminius in the custody of his own messmates.

  The Tribune stepped forward and spoke to the prisoner. “Optio Daminius, none of us want this, but a child is missing and I will do whatever is necessary to find him. Do you understand?”

  Daminius nodded.

  “Do you have a fresh account of your movements two days ago?”
r />   Daminius shook his head.

  Accius stepped back. There was a moment’s silence, then he said, “Carry on.”

  The questioner spoke to the guards. One of them entered the workshop, squinted up into the rafters, and then slung a rope up over something and caught the other end. The others stripped a struggling Daminius of his clothes and prodded him forward. Meanwhile someone pumped the bellows and a roar of white flame shot up from the charcoal.

  Ruso caught a glimpse of something hanging beside the identity tag around Daminius’s neck. My lucky charm, sir. Never fails. If you’re in trouble, just shout.

  Ruso turned and ran.

  Chapter 51

  There must be someone in: Why was nobody answering the door? Ruso pulled out his knife, used the hilt to rap on the wood, and yelled, “Fabius!”

  He must calm down. He must steady his breathing and try to think logically. He was not the first medic to be put in this position. He had more than once had to tidy victims up after torture, but he had never been present at the time. Several of his unluckier colleagues had been ordered to keep prisoners conscious during the process. Afterward, they had not wanted to talk about it and he had not wanted to ask.

  He saw now how sheltered he had been. By Fortune, and by a law to which he’d barely given a thought. Regulations stated that a soldier, being neither a slave, an enemy prisoner, nor a barbarian, was not to be condemned to the mines or to torture.

  But . . . what if Daminius was guilty? What if he was a convincing liar, and it was Daminius whom Candidus had gone to meet for a drink? What if Candidus had cheated at dice, and there had been a fight, and Candidus had ended up dead and hidden in the wall, and then Daminius had found out there was a witness, and wanted to silence him, and . . .

  Ruso shook his head violently, dislodging the elaborate fantasy that had sprung from a man’s simple refusal to reveal where he was on one particular afternoon.

  He banged on the door again. “Fabius!”

  A voice over his shoulder said, “Everything all right, sir?”

  It was Fabius’s clerk. “Fine,” Ruso assured him. “I just need to talk to the centurion.”

  The man said, “Very good, sir,” and carried on past.

  From somewhere inside the house he heard the approach of footsteps. A female voice said, “The centurion is unwell, sir. Please come back later.”

  “I need to see him now. Open the door.”

  “Sir, I can’t—”

  “He knows what this is about. Tell him if he doesn’t let me in, I’ll stand outside his room and yell through the window.”

  “Sir, please—”

  More footsteps. A male voice. “It’s all right, girl. Ruso, have they found the child?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll deal with whatever it is tomorrow. Go away.”

  “I meant it. I’ll shout outside your window.”

  The locks rattled. Finally the door was wrenched open, juddering with the force needed to get the damp wood free. Fabius appeared, with the face of the little kitchen girl pale behind him. Fabius dismissed her, and she scuttled away down the corridor.

  Ruso shouldered his way in, closed the door, and leaned back against it.

  For once Fabius looked genuinely ill. His breath smelled of wine and vomit. “Doctor.”

  Ruso said, “You know what’s happening.”

  “No.”

  “Is that no, you don’t know, or no, you’ve been told to stay out of it, or no, you’re too drunk to know anything?”

  “There’s no need to be rude. I’m not feeling well.”

  “What did you say to the tribune about Daminius?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You didn’t attempt to defend your own man?”

  Fabius winced. “Don’t shout, Ruso. My head is aching.”

  Ruso restrained an urge to punch him and lowered his voice. “How are you hoping to get better, Fabius, knowing they’re out there interrogating him?”

  “We need to find the boy.”

  “He’s your man. He’s loyal, he’s hardworking, and the men like him. I like him.”

  “That’s not the point.” Fabius might have been drinking, but he was sober enough to argue cogently.

  “Do you have any idea of how much you owe that man?”

  Fabius raised a forefinger. “That, Doctor, is why I am not involved. Nor you.”

  Ruso dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re not involved because this is illegal, and you know it.”

  “You think I’m callous, don’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

  “I’m not callous. Do you know why I’m not lying in bed? Because until they tell me it’s over, I shall be standing in there”—he wheeled round and pointed back toward the corridor—“in there, in front of the shrine, asking the gods to make Daminius tell the truth.”

  Ruso turned and lifted the door latch. He had no idea how to deal with a man whose response to the torture of his deputy was to drink wine and stand around praying. Fabius even seemed to think that staying out of bed was heroic.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m his doctor. I should be there.”

  “To do what?”

  “Oh, don’t waste my time!” Ruso strode away without looking back, but the question still echoed around his mind. To do what?

  “I don’t bloody know,” he muttered, not sure whether he was more angry with Fabius for being weak, or Accius for sanctioning torture, or Daminius for telling stupid lies, or Tilla for getting him involved in all this in the first place. As for that unspeakable brute who had lured the boy away . . .

  That was the problem. None of them knew who he was, so none of them knew where to place their anger. Instead they were fighting with each other.

  Daminius had been strung up by his wrists with his toes barely touching the ground. The glow of the fire in the gloomy workshop lit up his naked flesh and shaded his eyes into deep hollows. The gag had been taken off and his lips were moving, but no sound came out. The little winged phallus hung uselessly around his neck. Perhaps he was reciting a prayer. Ruso remembered that face grinning at him through the muck of the quarry. That’s the spirit, sir.

  Nobody seemed to notice Ruso. He moved closer and felt a waft of warmth from the furnace. So far Daminius appeared to be unhurt. The questioner was taking his time setting up: allowing his victim’s fear to build. That was how they worked.

  Daminius tensed as the questioner approached. The man stood there for a while looking him up and down. Breathing steadily. Like a purchaser assessing livestock. Finally he said, “Where is the boy?”

  Daminius looked him in the eye. “I don’t know.” He spoke louder, struggling to turn and face the onlookers. “I don’t know! I’ll swear on anything you want. You need to look for someone else. You’re wasting time.”

  The questioner moved around to pump the bellows. Daminius’s eyes glittered in the flames. “Where were you on the afternoon before yesterday?”

  “Just say where you were!” urged Ruso, not sure whether he wanted this to stop for the optio’s sake or for his own.

  Accius spun round. “What are you doing here?”

  Ruso, who did not know himself, said nothing.

  “This isn’t some sort of party, Ruso.”

  Ruso realized Fabius had thrown on a cloak and followed him. He was looking just past Daminius, using the old trick of concentrating his attention just beyond the thing he did not want to have to see. His face was haggard.

  Inside the workshop, the questioner had paused, waiting to know whether to proceed in the presence of witnesses. When all was quiet and no order had come to stop, he repeated, “Where were you on the afternoon of the day before yesterday?”

  “I went for a run, sir.”

  The questioner looked at Accius, who nodded. He reached for a pale rag and began to wrap it around his right hand.

  “Tell him!” Ruso begged.

  “I’m surpr
ised at you, Ruso,” said Accius. “I wouldn’t have thought a surgeon would be squeamish.” He glanced at the guards. “If the doctor interferes again, take him back to his quarters.”

  Ruso swallowed. There were four guards, the questioner, and a tribune. All determined to go through with this. All doing it to find the boy and to keep the peace with the Britons. Fabius was doing nothing to stop them, and perhaps he was right. The usual objections to torture—that people would say anything at all to make it stop, and that it was impossible to tell whether the victim was hiding the truth or didn’t know it—did not apply. Everyone knew Daminius had lied. All he had to do was to explain exactly where he had been when someone dressed as a legionary lured Branan away.

  The questioner moved across to the furnace and lifted out some implement that had been propped in the flames. The tip glowed white, golden, and then red as he turned back to Daminius. The optio twisted to try and avoid it, but with no foothold he swung helplessly back.

  Ruso held his breath.

  The red-hot tip had just made contact with the skin when the scream came. Not from Daminius, who grimaced and gasped as the stink of his burning flesh hit Ruso’s senses. The screaming came from beyond the yard, and it was getting louder as the footsteps approached.

  “Stop! Please, masters, officers, I beg you, stop! He knows nothing about the boy! Daminius, tell them!”

  Accius gave an order. The iron was withdrawn.

  Daminius twisted himself around, struggling to look at the girl. It was Fabius’s kitchen maid. She was trying to reach him and being held back by two guards.

  At the sight of her, Fabius seemed to recover his speech. “What are you doing here?”

  Daminius said, “I don’t know what this woman is talking about, sirs.”

  “Tell them!”

  Daminius still said nothing. Accius glared down at the girl. “Well?”

  The girl stopped trying to free herself from the guards. She looked round at the group of men and at the naked figure strung up in the light of the burning coals. “He was with me.”