Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

“Water,” Tilla told her. “We need lots of cold water-quickly. And then the whites of eggs.” And then a miracle.

She began to shake only when it was all over and she was sitting on the faded red cushion back in their quiet room in the mansio.

“You did well,” he said.

She watched the surface of the water tremble as she lifted the cup. “I wanted to run away.”

“So would anyone.”

She let him think he had said something comforting. She did not tell him about her wavering resolve to become a medicus. He would have stayed no matter what he felt like doing. She had only stayed because she’d had no choice: Virana had announced her. She said, “If he really had been scalded all over, what would I have done?”

“Exactly the same as you did.”

“He would be dying now.”

He said, “Yes.”

“That neighbor needs a good slap for telling lies.”

Her husband did not seem to share her outrage. “People panic.”

In a better light Tilla had been able to see the angry red scald down one side of the struggling child’s leg, and secretly rejoiced at the healthy skin everywhere else.

She knew her husband had worried about putting too much poppy inside such a small body, and then about not giving enough to dull the pain. Whatever he did, the child would not feel as lucky as he undoubtedly was. The mother, who lived next door, had been baking and did not want him near the oven, so she had left him playing in the yard. He had crawled under the gate into the back of the shop and tried to stir the washing cauldron.

She put the cup down. “I do not like this place.”

“I don’t think anybody likes this place.” He pulled off the tunic that was splattered with water and the egg white they had smoothed over the angry red skin.

“Your Jupiter has not defeated the curse.”

“There is no curse, Tilla. Just a mother who didn’t know her child could get under a gate.”

“Corinna has many things on her mind,” Tilla explained. “She is the wife of Victor, who deserted.”

“That explains it, then. She’s distracted.”

“Did you know people are saying your centurion drowned one of his men?”

When she had finished telling him, he carried on buckling his belt in silence. Then he said, “Your secret informer-it wasn’t the scalded-like-a-pig woman, was it?”

“No!”

“But this person didn’t see it happen.”

“Lots of people saw it. My informer says they are too scared to talk.”

Instead of answering, he pulled the tunic straight, then bowed his head and ran both hands through his hair several times as if that would improve it.

She said, “Why would somebody make up things like that?”

“Why,” he said, “would a centurion deliberately drown his own man in front of witnesses?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. But they might not have understood what they saw. And it’s none of our business. I’m not an investigator now.”

“Be careful of that man.”

He picked up his case. “I need to get back. I’ve got a critical patient to keep an eye on.”

“I will pray for him.”

“Tell the gods his name is Austalis.” He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “You did well with the boy.”

“What will you do about the centurion?”

“I’ll think about it.” He paused in the doorway. “What festival did you miss while we were on the road here?”

She frowned. “Festival?”

“Some native tradition, or a god of some sort? Might have something to do with hunting?”

“I have not heard of it.”

“Ah. Just for men, perhaps.”

She wanted to say, And you think that means a woman would not know of it? but he was gone.

Austalis’s face was the color of porridge, and a sheen of sweat lay on his skin.

Resting his fingers on a cold wrist with a pulse that was too weak and too fast, Ruso told him that Tilla was praying to the local gods on his behalf. The lad’s cadaverous attempt at a smile of thanks was interrupted by a hiccup. Ruso exchanged a glance with Pera, who had just entered the room. Hiccuping might sound trivial, but for a man in Austalis’s condition it was a bad sign.

Ruso observed him for a few minutes, checked the dressings, and promised to return in a couple of hours, not adding that there would still be enough light to perform the amputation. He had no idea whether anything would have changed in two hours. He was just putting off the decision, and he knew it. Geminus had shaken his confidence. How could he have been so wrong? Why had he listened to the recruits but not to the medics? Why had he believed every word he had been told?

Because he liked the recruits, and he didn’t like Geminus. Because Geminus and Dexter’s blame-the-natives attitude had annoyed him from the moment he’d arrived here. Because they would have said the same things about Tilla, and even if they were partly right, he would still have wanted to punch them.

“Sir?”

Ruso realized Pera had been talking to him since they set off down the corridor.

“Say that again. I wasn’t listening.”

“A word in private, sir?”

“Is it urgent? I’ve had enough words in private for one day.”

Pera conceded that it wasn’t, but his expression said something different.

Ruso owed the lad an apology anyway. “Come on,” he said, taking him by the arm and skirting past a squeaking trolley loaded with linen baskets into one of the unused rooms. He closed the door. The squeak faded into the distance. He said, “I’m listening now.”

“Sir, I apologize for that excuse about the man falling off the stretcher.”

“It wasn’t very convincing.”

“I’m usually much better at lying, sir.”

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me the truth now?”

“I’d rather try for a more convincing lie, sir.”

“I’ve had a conversation with Geminus,” Ruso said. “He’s explained some things I didn’t understand about the situation here.”

“Yes, sir.”

You should have listened to your staff. “So is there anything else you think I ought to know? Anything you haven’t just invented, that is.”

“If the centurion has explained everything, sir, then I have nothing to add.”

“Good,” said Ruso, noting the odd formality of the response. “That’s all right, then.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“That’s all you want to say to me?”

For a moment he thought Pera was going to offer something new, but all that came out was another bland “Yes, sir.”

Ruso opened the door again. “You can go.”

Alone in the empty room, Ruso leaned back against the wall. Conscious of the distant bellowing of orders and the steady tramp of boots, he found himself wondering how many of the healthy recruits being drilled up and down the parade ground had been involved in the killing of Tadius. He closed his eyes, imagining the broken body lying in the street and the guilty men fleeing away into the night. Someone-the centurions, perhaps-had gathered Tadius up and carried him to the hospital, where Pera had recorded the details of the injuries straight away in the postmortem report.

Ruso frowned. He was not an investigator now. He never wanted to be one again. He just needed to satisfy himself about one thing, then he would be able to concentrate on Austalis.

Pera was halfway across the entrance hall when Ruso grabbed him by the shoulder. “Tadius,” murmured Ruso, in a voice so low even the statue of Aesculapius, benignly gazing out to welcome his new patients, would have struggled to hear. “What time was he brought in?”

Pera thought about it. “It was after the evening meal, sir, but it wasn’t dark. About the tenth hour? The days are very long at the moment.”