Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

“Good for dog bites. You won’t notice after a bit.” He had expected her to launch straight into the subject of Geminus, but instead she busied herself rolling up the poetry scroll. He said, “Have I missed any patients?”

“A boy who jumped off a wall and sprained his ankle, and one old lady who fainted and fell off a donkey. I have bandaged them both. Everyone else is too excited to be ill, or too drunk to notice. How is it in the fort?”

He hung his cloak on the back of the door and joined her on the bed. “The Horse Guards and the Twentieth are eyeing each other with mutual suspicion,” he said, “and the hospital’s full of Praetorians who haven’t spoken to anyone so far except to complain.”

“But they are all on the same side.”

“Only if there’s an enemy.”

There was a shout from the kitchen and the clang of a metal pan hitting the floor. He said, “We need to talk. I don’t doubt what you say about Geminus. But if Accius finds out you’ve been listening to more rumors after he told you to stay out of it-”

“I tried not to listen, but she was determined to tell.” She paused, running one finger slowly down his forearm. “Husband, if I tell you who said it, will you swear not to tell Accius?”

“I suppose so.”

“That is not swearing!”

“Tilla, you know I won’t tell.” That was not swearing, either, but she let it pass.

She leaned back against the side wall and tucked her bare feet between his legs while she explained about the farm she had gone to visit. “Virana is a very silly girl,” she said, “but now I have met her family I am not surprised.”

He shook his head. “What is it about soldiers that sends girls silly?”

“You should be glad of it,” she said, wriggling her toes.

“Ow.”

“Sorry.” She moved her foot away from the bandage. “So the tribune did nothing about this Geminus?”

“Oh, he did something. He conveyed my ‘complaint’ word for word to him. Geminus assures me he has no hard feelings over it.”

“And now his dog has bitten you.”

“Evidently the dog doesn’t feel the same way.”

“You could have been killed!”

He slid a friendly hand up her thigh, reminding her of what she might have lost. She did not seem to notice.

“This proves Barita was telling the truth!” she said. “Now he is trying to frighten me with a pig head and silence you too.”

“One of the recruits who complained has been beaten up.”

“Has he lost his mind? He cannot go round threatening and killing everybody!”

“He doesn’t have to. He just has to make them think it’s not worth making a fuss.”

“We must stop this man!”

He slid the hand higher. “Accius won’t do anything. If he believes anything’s wrong-which I doubt-he’s waiting for it all to blow over.”

“You will have to talk to someone more important.”

“There’s no one here-” He caught her expression. “Oh, no. No. That would be ridiculous.”

“You have met him before. You could remind him. I will pray that he will listen.”

“You’re starting to sound like my stepmother. Besides, I’ve been told to stay away from him. I’ll talk to the camp prefect about it when we get back to Deva. Until then I’ll just have to be careful. I don’t imagine any more of the recruits will step out of line.”

She grasped his hand. “Not now. I am trying to think. And I am thinking you should be very careful. I saw that pig’s head. I think Geminus is mad enough to try to stop you from getting back to Deva.”

“Unless he thinks he can make me keep my mouth shut.”

She brought his hand up to her lips and kissed it. “You are a good man in a bad place.”

“And if I’m not prepared to risk my neck to make that place better,” he said, “will I still be a good man?”

“I do not know,” she said. “But you will still be alive.”

The dawn briefing was a crowded affair, but Ruso was greeted by nobody except the plump centurion, who looked too hungover to know who he was grunting at. He was not sorry to make his way back to the hospital, where he intended to remain while men with fiercer ambition tried to impress each other.

Austalis’s smile of greeting was encouraging in more ways than he could know. Ruso supervised the changing of his dressings and, since the kitchen orderly had been commandeered by Hadrian’s cook, went to fetch the breakfast nobody had remembered to bring. This took longer than expected, as he was called upon to intervene in a squabble over what the Praetorians called “requisitioning” of saucepans and the kitchen slave called theft. Thus he emerged completely unaware of the panic that had gripped the other end of the corridor.

The kitchen slave had ladled a generous helping of honeyed milk into Austalis’s cup. Ruso was concentrating on not spilling it across the tray when the sound of footsteps and voices caused him to glance up to avoid a collision. Half a dozen men were bearing down on him. At their head was the tall figure of Hadrian. The short, flush-faced man next to him was Pera.

Recalling the tribune’s order to stay out of Hadrian’s way, Ruso stepped aside to allow them to pass just as the emperor reached the end of a sentence.

“That’s him, sir!” declared Pera, with obvious relief.

Hadrian stopped. So did everyone else. Ruso, back to the wall and still clutching the tray, felt a sudden sympathy with patients who found themselves surrounded by a gang of apprentices and an instructor ready to show them how to conduct an intimate examination. He could not salute without dropping the tray, and without the salute his “Hail Caesar!” sounded rather odd.

Hadrian put his well-groomed head on one side and peered at Ruso. “Don’t I know you?”

He really must insist that Tilla stopped praying for things. “Ruso, Your Majesty. We met after the earthquake in, um …” Gods above, what was the place called? His memory had deserted him.

“I thought so,” said the emperor, seeming not to notice his confusion. “I never forget a face. I don’t know why I bother having a man to tell me who people are: Half the time I know more than he does. Ruso. You were one of the rescuers in Antioch. A terrible business.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you’re in charge here now?”

He said, “I’m only here for a few days, sir. Pera’s usually the man to talk to.”

Pera, who must have thought he had escaped, did not look grateful to be placed back in the target area.

Hadrian glanced from one to the other of them with an air of amusement.

“Ah, Pera. Back to you. So what can you tell me about the Britons?”

Pera’s hand rose to his neck. “Th-they’ve calmed down a lot since last year, Your Majesty.”

“So I hear,” agreed Hadrian, apparently satisfied. “But I’ll be leaving the Sixth over here in case there’s any more trouble.”

Pera swallowed, as if he was not sure whether he should thank the emperor or not. Hadrian, evidently used to smoothing over conversations with the tongue-tied, turned to Ruso. “So, Doctor Who Isn’t in Charge, how are you finding things in Eboracum?”

Ruso glanced round at the faces: one or two sympathetic, most bored, Pera rigid. They were waiting for him to answer this bland question with something suitably reassuring.

This is not the time . The emperor had affairs of state waiting for him, and a crowd of ambassadors following him around like a long unwieldy tail. He didn’t want a litany of complaints any more than Ruso wanted a list of symptoms after casually asking an acquaintance about his welfare.

But Geminus’s regime in Eboracum had left recruits dead and injured, families bereaved, a woman and child abandoned …