Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

Tilla puzzled. “But if there is something wrong-”

“Don’t complain. Tadius complained. Victor wanted to.”

“About what?”

“About lots of things,” said Corinna. “But look what happened. The Legion always wins in the end.”

“No, no, no, no, no!”

The orderly seized Austalis by his good arm and wrestled him back down onto the bed.

“No, no!”

Ruso raised his hands to show they were empty, but Austalis was too frightened to care. The orderly kept him pinned down while Ruso retreated and leaned against the wall.

“No.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Ruso assured him, which at that moment was true.

The “No!” was more of a whimper now: Austalis had reached the end of his strength.

Ruso stood motionless, as he would have with a frightened animal. Eventually he said, “Would you like some water?”

“No.”

“You’re very ill, Austalis.”

“No.”

“The surgery would help.”

The voice was very weak now. “Don’t … cut.”

Ruso nodded to the orderly, who stood up, hitched his torn tunic back over his shoulder, and retreated to a corner. To Austalis he said, “You’re in a bit of a mess there. Shall I put your bed straight?”

There was no sign of Austalis caring one way or the other. Ruso straightened the bedding and poured a few drops of water between the cracked lips.

“Let me tell you about Clementinus,” said Ruso. “Clementinus used to be a vet in the Twentieth. Now he earns a good living as a dog breeder and he’s fathered two children. Or there’s Amandus the brewer. He’s got a wife and a son. Both men lost an arm at about your age, and I did the surgery.”

A whisper of “No.”

“We can give you something to dull the pain and I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“No.”

“If it’s the arm or you, I know which I’d choose.”

The silence was encouraging.

“It’s the best choice. We’ll get rid of the diseased-”

The door burst open and Geminus strode into the room. He loomed over the end of the bed, eyed the startled patient, and announced, “That arm’s coming off, then.”

“Out!” Ruso had him halfway to the door before he recovered his balance.

Geminus twisted free and blocked the exit. “He’s my man.”

“He’s my patient.”

Ruso was taller. Geminus was solid muscle. There was no sign of his shadows, but they were probably out in the corridor somewhere. Ruso said, “Not here.”

“You didn’t listen.”

“Not here!”

Ruso was conscious of a faint voice behind him. The words were in British. “Not my arm-no.”

“Don’t worry,” Ruso assured him in the same tongue, keeping his eyes fixed on Geminus. “Nothing will happen here unless I say so.”

“Outside,” growled Geminus, stepping back to let him pass.

Ruso murmured, “Stay here and keep him calm,” to the wide-eyed orderly, and gestured to Geminus to go first. He was not giving that man a chance to get near his patient again.

“You were told to mind your own business.”

Ruso envied Aesculapius, whose tranquil gaze across the entrance hall was undisturbed by the centurion’s tone. He had brought Geminus here because if there was going to be a fight, he wanted witnesses. He also wanted help, but he doubted he would get any. Still, at least there was no sign of the two shadows. He said, “If you want to talk to my patient, you talk to me first.”

“I should have known you’d be trouble.”

“Did you have me followed?”

Geminus glanced around to make sure no one but the god was listening. “My men have better things to do than get you out of places you shouldn’t get into.”

“You told me Tadius died at night.”

“I told you everything you need to know.” Geminus moved closer. He smelled of the sweat of the training ground. Ruso stood very still.

“When I heard you were coming,” Geminus said, “I asked some questions. And I got some very interesting answers. Why was it you left the Legion last time?”

Ruso knew now where this was heading, and he did not want to go there. “I was injured. By the time I’d recovered, my contract was over.”

“Nothing to do with your woman, then?”

Ruso took a slow breath. “That’s old news.”

“But I’ll bet it hasn’t reached the tribune, has it?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Geminus’s smile was even more fearsome than his scowl. “We’re all on the same side here, Doctor,” he said. “You leave me to get on with my business, and I’ll leave you to get on with yours.”

After last night’s costly mistake, Tilla did not order the evening meal until her husband turned up. At the same moment a local man and his nephew arrived to show him a limp and complain of a bellyache. Then the stew came, and he ate in silence, listening to his own thoughts. It did not seem the best time to ask for a slave so she could learn to be a medicus, so she said, “How is your difficult patient?”

“Mm?”

“Your patient. Austalis. How is he?”

“Desperate to keep the arm. I’m leaving him for one more night.”

“Perhaps he will improve.”

“And perhaps I’ll have killed him.”

So that was what was troubling him. “I went to see Corinna’s boy again,” she said. “He was asleep.”

“Mm.”

“She told me something I did not understand.”

He tore a chunk off the bread and dropped it into the liquid.

“Shall I tell you what it was?”

“Uh-what? Yes.”

“She said Tadius and Victor were good friends, but then they had a fight.”

He scooped the bread out on his spoon. “Friends fall out.”

“She says there are things we don’t know.”

“Maybe we don’t need to know them.”

“Did you think about that centurion?”

He looked at her. “That centurion knows why we had to go to Gaul.”

She put her spoon down. “But how-”

“Apparently he’s been asking around. It’s not exactly a secret, is it? Metellus circulates his security lists. That’s the point of them.”

Her throat was suddenly dry. “I thought that was all forgotten.”

“So did I.”

“I always knew that centurion was-”

“I know what he is!”

The force of his reply startled her.

“Sorry,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’re none of his business, and Metellus will be busy up on the border, arresting anyone who isn’t a loyal subject of Hadrian.”

As she said, “I hope so. That man is a snake,” there was a rap on the door and a slave announced more visitors for the Medicus. Tilla sighed and put the bread platter over his bowl in the faint hope that the stew might not be stone cold when he finished.

The back sufferer turned out to have tried every remedy that was suggested and refused to believe that gentle exercise would help. The child who could not speak was deaf. She had devised her own gestures to communicate with her family, and seemed to have accepted the situation far more readily than they had.

Tilla had just lifted the bread platter from his bowl when they both looked up, uncertain. He called, “Come in!” and the movement of the latch confirmed that there was indeed somebody there.

A bent and wrinkled slave shuffled in. Tilla recognized the figure she had seen hoeing the weeds out of the rose beds, but when she greeted him with “You are the gardener!” he shrank away and begged them not to tell anyone he was there. The reason became apparent as he explained his symptoms: stiffness in the hips, painful knees, difficulty in movement, hot and swollen joints in the hands … None of these was desirable in a gardener. He was terrified of being sold and replaced with someone younger and fitter.