Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

“Sorry, miss.”

  She was slightly breathless with the effort of keeping up, but her escort did not offer to slow the pace. She guessed they too would be glad when this was over. “We should be safe,” she said. “I made an offering before I came out.”

  “We’ll look after you, miss,” Mallius assured her, adjusting his grip on his shield. She frowned. She did not want this man to think about helping her. She wanted him to be more nervous than she was herself, otherwise this trip would be a waste of time.

  Where was Albanus? Scanning ahead, she said, “My husband says I am foolish to be afraid of the man in the wall.”

  “Don’t you worry, miss,” Daminius told her. “All the officers say it’s nonsense.”

  There he was! Albanus. Crossing the road about fifty paces in front of them. He was wearing Candidus’s helmet, just as they had agreed. The big rectangular shield covered most of his body. That and the dark cloak he had borrowed hid the absence of armor, a sword, and a proper military belt. “Your patient is a lucky woman, miss,” Daminius continued, pretending he had seen nothing. “A lot of healers wouldn’t go out tonight.”

  Daminius was a good actor. She had guessed that he would be: How else had he managed to deceive his centurion about the kitchen maid?

  The figure of Albanus dipped as it stepped down to cross the ditch. By the time they were level with it, it was walking away from them over the grass.

  “What do you think, Mallius?” Tilla asked, forcing herself not to watch as Albanus approached the woods. “Is there a man in the wall?”

  No reply.

  “Answer the lady, soldier!” ordered Daminius. “Well? Is there a dead man inside the wall?”

  Mallius, who had turned to stare at the departing Albanus, returned his gaze to the front and mumbled that he didn’t know.

  “Of course you know!” snapped Daminius. “There’s nothing up there. It’s official. The lady’s husband is quite right.”

  Mallius said, “Yes, sir,” and glanced behind him again.

  “People are still saying things,” Tilla observed as the road climbed the slope. “Only today I spoke to someone who swears he saw the body being hidden. He even says he saw who did it.”

  “He’s lying,” Daminius said.

  “Perhaps,” said Tilla. “But I think in the morning I will take this person to the tribune. Then they can go and open the wall in the place he shows them, and everybody will see if there is anything there.”

  “I’d pay to join that work party,” said Daminius.

  “It will be good to know the truth,” Tilla continued. “People are afraid. They are saying the man’s spirit walks at night, searching for someone to give him the proper burial rites.”

  She risked a glance and caught Mallius staring at her. She hoped she had not said too much. It had been a long day, and she was not at her best. “Anyway,” she said briskly, “it is good news about the boy. My husband will bring him back safe tomorrow and we will find out who stole him. Then perhaps this curfew will be—”

  She stopped. They all saw it at the same time: something moving on the road far ahead. The sound of hoofbeats came toward them on the wind. For once Tilla was relieved to catch the glint of moonlight on armor. Moments later they were surrounded by four riders on stamping horses, and Daminius was explaining who his small party were and what they were doing out here. She dared not look to see where Albanus was, but she saw that Mallius was glancing round as if he were wondering the same thing. That was good.

  Satisfied, the cavalry patrol cantered off into the night. Mallius propped his spear against his shield and loosened his chinstrap with one finger, gazing after the riders as if wishing he could join them.

  Fifty paces farther on he glanced back again. Tilla turned. The sight of the soldier striding along behind them made her jump even though she was half expecting it. Albanus was too far away for his features to be visible in the poor light, but close enough for his slight frame to recall that of his nephew.

  Mallius said, “We’re being followed.”

  They stopped. Gazing at Albanus, who now stood like a statue in the road, Daminius said, “Where?”

  “Did you see someone?” asked Tilla. She watched Mallius narrow his eyes to squint at Albanus in the stark pallor of the moon.

  “Description?” Daminius prompted.

  “I thought . . . one of our men.”

  “Moonlight,” said Daminius, as if that explained everything. “But I wouldn’t put it past the natives to creep around in the dark. Keep your eyes open.”

  Mallius hissed, “Look again, sir.” He had his spear raised now. Tilla hoped he was not going to fling it to see if the ghost was solid.

  Daminius turned to Tilla. “Can you see anything, miss?”

  “I see the road,” she said. “And the trees, and the moon.”

  Mallius looked from one to other of them, then back at the statuelike figure on the road. His voice had an oddly strangled quality, as if all the muscles in his throat had tightened up. “There’s nothing there, is there?”

  “I can see there’s nothing there,” Daminius retorted. “You’re worse than a bloody native. Sorry, miss. No offense. How far now?”

  “The next turn on the left.” Tilla tried to signal Go away behind her back. The ghost had done his job. She wanted to get back to the warmth and safety of Ria’s.

  “Isn’t this where the missing boy lives?” Now Daminius was sounding nervous too.

  “We are going to their neighbors,” said Tilla. Branan’s household was the last one she would want to disturb tonight. “It is about a hundred paces,” she said, taking the left fork onto the track and stepping into an empty blackness where the overhanging trees blocked out the moonlight and it was impossible to see their footing. She remembered to add, for the sake of the pretense, “I thought they would send someone to meet us at the corner.”

  “Should have brought a torch and a flint,” Daminius muttered. “I’ll go in front. Miss, you walk behind me. Watch the rear, mate. Don’t talk to any ghosts.”

  The trees bent and shuffled above them. Tilla stumbled forward, keen not to lose touch with her escort in the dark. She had chosen somewhere she would be recognized: They were on the way to the house of Inam, the boy who had last seen Branan, but she had never been down this track at night. She flinched as something snatched at her skirts and was glad to feel the scrape of a bramble as she brushed it away. “I am glad I have you with me,” she said truthfully.

  There was an orange glow ahead. As they drew closer she could make out a gate silhouetted against a small bonfire in the paddock by the house. The flames had died to embers, and nobody seemed to be around to tend it. Tilla pursed her lips. This was going to be awkward. She had not expected the family to be in bed.

  Behind her, Daminius muttered, “I thought this was party night?”

  “They are showing respect for their neighbors and the missing boy,” Tilla guessed. She was going to have to disturb them now; she could hardly to admit to her escort that she had invented this call to lure one of them out at night. “Hello!” she cried in British, realizing she would have to go through the whole pretense in case Mallius understood. “It is the Daughter of Lugh, the healer!”

  When there was no other response, Daminius said, “Is this the right house, miss?”

  Since she was not expected anywhere, it was as right as any other. “Hello?” she cried again. “It is the healer!”

  A voice she recognized as Inam’s father shouted, “The fire is raked and there is no water in the house! There is nothing for you here! Go away!”

  Daminius said, “What’s he saying?”

  She could have translated the words, but he would never have understood about the creatures who came out of the burial mounds searching for homes where there was warmth and something to drink.

  “It is not a spirit!” she cried, not wanting to leave the family in a state of fear. “It is me, Daughter of Lugh, friend of your neighbors. You son Inam
helped me to look for Branan. I will come to the house so you can see it is me!”

  She left the soldiers at the gate and carried on the rest of the conversation through the closed door, sheltering under the dark of the porch and explaining that she had been sent an urgent plea to call here. She could hear a whispered argument going on inside the house, but still there was no welcome. Finally she suggested that somebody must have played a joke on her, and they sounded relieved when she said she was sorry to disturb them and would go away.

  She picked her way back across the yard to the gate, wondering if she would have a chance to explain in daylight, or whether this time next year people would be telling a fresh story of a family who had barred the door against a ghost that was trying to trick its way into the house using a false voice. Perhaps she would keep quiet. Otherwise the family would have to admit that they had sent away a lone woman in the dark after she had come to help them.

  Her escort had moved away from the gate, perhaps suspecting the sight of them would frighten the family even more. Unable to see them in the inky blackness under the trees, she said softly in Latin, “I am very sorry. This was a wasted journey. Somebody got the message wrong.”

  Nobody answered. A fresh gust of wind sent the trees dancing and whispering. Tilla felt her stomach muscles tighten. She pushed her hood back and something brushed against her face. Only a falling leaf, surely. She drew her knife. “Daminius?” she called. “Mallius? Where are you?”

  Was that a muffled cry? Then movement in the woods that was not the wind: another cry and the sound of clumsy creatures crashing through undergrowth. She tried to go toward it, but the brambles clawed her back and the sounds were getting fainter. “Daminius!”

  She dragged herself out of the thorns and retreated to the gate. Clutching her bag with one hand and the knife with the other, straining to see around her in the dark, she shouted, “Daminius, where are you? It is time to leave! Come back!”

  But nobody came.

  Chapter 67

  Tilla crept back along the track toward the road, her mind racing to make some sense of what was happening. Perhaps Mallius had panicked and run away, and Daminius had given chase. If only one of them had at least shouted back. They must have heard her: The movement in the woods had sounded close by. Now she was alone here with the echoes of the old stories: the hanged man who came to life and killed the family who gave him water, the women and cattle who were stolen away into the burial mounds, and those captured alive who were sent back with impossible gifts from the rulers of the dead—buttercups and primroses in November—along with warnings of bad things to come.

  She pushed the Samain tales away and moved on, reminding herself that morning was drawing closer. Something good might be revealed by the rising sun. With luck, Mallius would be caught and confess, and Albanus would find out the truth about his nephew, and all this would have been—

  She stifled a scream.

  “Umph!” gasped the thing she had walked into. Then it stepped back and demanded, “Who goes there?”

  “Albanus!” She put away the knife and groped for an arm to cling to. Judging by the way he returned her grasp, he was as relieved as she was.

  “It worked!” she whispered. “I think he has run away in fright. He will never be at peace now.”

  But Albanus was too agitated to listen. He was pulling her along, gabbling about getting help. “Please hurry, madam! We must get to the fort!”

  She wished he would slow down. This was a bumpy farm track, not an army road, and besides, who was he to drag her about in the dark? She wrenched her arm out of his grip and stopped, her own fears fading now that she was with somebody more nervous than herself. “There is nothing we can do now,” she told him. “The soldiers will find him and—”

  “Madam, they are captured!”

  “Captured?” She could barely see him, but she had the impression that Albanus was hopping from foot to foot in agitation.

  “By natives!” He grabbed her arm again, hauling her toward the road. He was surprisingly strong for a small man who spent most of his life sitting at a desk.

  “What natives? Where did they go?”

  But instead of answering, Albanus gave a sudden cry and fell, almost pulling her over with him. He seemed to be writhing about on the ground, muttering words that she only heard her husband use when he thought she wasn’t listening.

  Tilla grabbed for her knife and crouched to make herself a smaller target, hissing, “What is it?”

  “Nothing!” he gasped, not troubling to keep quiet. “It is nothing. Sorry. It will be all right in a—oh, dear!”

  He had turned his foot on a stone in the track. She groped inside her bag for cooling medicines and a bandage.

  “No need,” he insisted. “I can get up if you give me your arm. Epictetus teaches that pain is—agh!”

  Whatever Epictetus said, it was soon clear that Albanus could barely stand, let alone walk. Clinging to her arm, he gasped, “Madam, I am sorry not to be able to protect you, but someone must go and fetch help for the two men.”

  “Fetch help to where?” she demanded, appalled at the thought of rousing soldiers to go crashing about the local farms yet again. “Who took them?” She sat Albanus down again inside the smooth dry curve of the shield. “Tell me what you saw.”

  Albanus had not seen very much. Following at a suitably ghostly distance, he had heard movement in the woods and hidden himself inside the borrowed cloak. He heard people creeping past him and a soft whisper of British. Too late, he realized he should have shouted a warning to the soldiers. There was a scuffle, muffled cries, and then he thought he saw struggling figures being dragged away into the woods. The next thing he heard was Tilla calling for her escort.

  “Are you sure you saw them struggling?”

  “We must have the woods searched with torches in case they lie injured.”

  “Let me go to Senecio,” said Tilla, trying not to put pressure on the damaged ankle as she unrolled the bandage around it.

  “We must raise the alarm!” he insisted. “We—ow!”

  “Sorry.”

  “We need search parties out here immediately. Before the natives get away.”

  “The soldiers will start a riot.” She paused with the roll of bandage under his heel. “There will be fighting in every house they enter.”

  “Madam, please! We gain nothing by arguing. Let me finish the dressing. I am sure your husband would want us to fetch help.”

  He was right, of course. That was exactly what her husband would want to do, and with good reason. But if her fears were correct, then it would be the end for Senecio and his family, whether or not Branan turned up. “Albanus, if we fetch the soldiers, they will find out that Daminius was helping us, and he will be in terrible trouble even if he is rescued. Is that what you want?”

  Albanus gave a shuddering sigh. “If I believed the gods cared, I would believe they are punishing me for taking part in this foolish plan.”

  Tilla, suspected he would have liked to add with this foolish woman. “We were trying to give justice for your nephew.”

  Albanus groaned. “I should never have—”

  “Well, you did.” He gasped as she tightened the knot. “Sorry. Now put your hand in mine and try to stand.”

  He managed to stand on one leg but insisted on leaning on the shield. He did not want her to help him walk. He wanted her to hurry away and fetch the legionaries, and when she said she would only do that when she had spoken to Senecio, he gave an “Oh!” of exasperation and took a hop away from her, using the shield in place of a stick.

  “Where are you going?”

  “You must do what you think is your duty, madam.” There was a grunt of sudden effort, as if he were hauling the shield out of the mud, then a crunch as he placed it back down again. “I shall do mine. I have been part of a—” Here there was a splash and a muttering of “Oh, dear!” before “I have been part of a rash venture that has left two of our men i
n enemy hands.” Another grunt. Another crunch. Another splash. “No matter that I believe one of them has done something terrible to my nephew.” His voice was fainter as he hobbled away. “I must do my—agh!—my utmost to save them.”

  “I am trying to save them too!” she called after him. It was true, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that her husband would say she was putting Roman lives in greater danger just to save a few Britons from their own folly.

  “Regardless of the consequences to myself,” Albanus added, as if he were making a speech.

  “Then you need to go the other way,” she told him. “Turn around. The fort is north of here.”

  The movement stopped. When he asked if she was sure, there was suspicion in his voice.

  “I will not come with you,” she told him, “But you are a good friend to my husband and I would not lie to you.” Skirting the barely visible puddle, she put a hand on his skinny shoulder. “May the gods protect you this night, Albanus. I will come and find you as soon as I can.”

  “May the gods protect us all, madam.” His shoulder moved under her touch. The shield thumped down into the mud once more, and she felt water splatter over her boots as he hopped back through the puddle.

  Chapter 68

  There was a tiger on his face. It was digging its claws into his forehead, and it had mauled him all over. Everything ached and throbbed, except the parts that stabbed instead. He should do something to make it stop. What did you do against a tiger? Nothing people tried in the arena worked for long.

  Jupiter’s holy bollocks, that hurt. Like having liquid fire poured over his forehead.

  Play dead. Don’t flinch. Don’t moan. Don’t . . .

  Too late.

  . . . flap one hand about, vaguely hoping to frighten it off.

  A voice said, “He’s reacting to pain, sir.”

  An older voice said, “Good.”

  Ruso wondered what was good about it. He decided to go back to sleep. Then he decided not to when the tiger gripped both sides of his head and tried to gnaw his eye out. “Get off!” came out slurred.