Ruth Downie: Terra Incognita

He reached for his purse. “Let me tell you what is going to happen here,” he said to the woman. “I will give you one sesterce, which is-”

“Is too much!” said Tilla.

“Which is more than the bread was worth,” continued Ruso, ignoring her. “My housekeeper will apologize to you-”

“I am not sorry!”

“She will apologize to you,” he repeated, “and you will go back to your stall and continue charging exorbitant sums of money to travelers who were foolish enough not to buy before they set out.”

Ruso dismissed the grinning soldiers with a tip that was not enough to buy their silence but might limit the scurrilous nature of their exaggerations when they told the story around tonight’s campfires. The women seemed less satisfied, but that was hardly surprising. Ruso had long ago learned that the pleasing of women was a tricky business.

By now the bulk of the legionaries had gone on far ahead, followed by a plodding train of army pack ponies laden with tents and millstones and all the other equipment too heavy to be carried on poles on the soldiers’ backs. Behind them was the unofficial straggle of camp followers.

Ruso turned to Tilla. “Walk alongside me,” he ordered, adding quickly, “Clean side in.” She sidestepped around the tail of the horse and came forward to walk at its shoulder. Ruso leaned down and said in a voice which would not be overheard, “None of the other civilians is causing trouble, Tilla. What is the matter with you?”

“I am hungry, my lord.”

“I gave you money for food.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Was it not enough?”

“It was enough, yes.”

She ventured no further information. Ruso straightened up. He was not in the mood for the I-will-only-answer-the-question-you-ask-me game. He was in the mood for a peaceful morning and some more of last night’s chicken in pastry, which he now retrieved and began to eat. He glanced sideways. Tilla was watching. He did not offer her any.

They continued in silence along the straight road up and down yet another wooded hill. British hills, it seemed, were as melancholic as British rain. Instead of poking bold fingers of rock up into the clouds, they lay lumpy and morose under damp green blankets, occasionally stirring themselves to roll vaguely skyward and then giving up and sliding into the next valley.

Somewhere among those hills lay the northern edge of the empire, and even further north, beyond the supposedly friendly tribes living along the border, rose wild cold mountains full of barbarians who had never been conquered and now never would be. Unless, of course, the new emperor had a sudden fit of ambition and gave the order to march north and have another crack at them. But so far Hadrian had shown no signs of spoiling for a fight. In fact he had already withdrawn his forces from several provinces he considered untenable. Britannia remained unfinished business: an island only half-conquered, and Ruso had not found it easy to explain to his puzzled housemate back in Deva why he had volunteered to go and peer over the edge into the other half.

“The North? Holy Jupiter, man, you don’t want to go up there!” Valens’s handsome face had appeared to register genuine concern at his colleague’s plans. “It’s at-it’s beyond the edge of the civilized world. Why d’you think we send foreigners up there to run it?”

Ruso had poured himself more wine and observed, “When you think about it, we’re all foreigners here. Except the Britons, of course.”

“You know what I mean. Troops who are used to those sorts of conditions. The sort of chap who tramps bare chested through bogs and picks his teeth with a knife. They bring them in from Germania, or Gaul, or somewhere.”

“I’m from Gaul,” Ruso reminded him.

“Yes, but you’re from the warm end. You’re practically one of us.” This was evidently intended as a compliment. “I know you haven’t exactly shone here in Deva, after all that business with the barmaids-”

“This has got nothing to do with barmaids,” Ruso assured him. “You know I spent half of yesterday afternoon waiting for a bunch of men who didn’t turn up?”

“I believe you did mention it once or twice.”

“And it’s not the first time, either. So I tracked down their centurion today. Apparently he and his cronies have been telling the men they can go for first aid training if they want to.”

“If they want to?”

“Of course they don’t want to. They want to spend their spare time sleeping and fishing and visiting their girlfriends.”

“I hope he apologized.”

“No. He said he couldn’t see the point of teaching ordinary soldiers first aid. He said it’s like teaching sailors to swim-just prolongs the agony.”

Valens shook his head sadly. “You really shouldn’t let a few ignorant centurions banish you to the-” He was interrupted by a crash from the kitchen and a stream of British that had the unmistakeable intonation of a curse. He glanced at the door. “I suppose you’re intending to take the lovely Tilla as well?”

“Of course.”

“That is bad news. I shall miss her unique style of household management.” Valens peered down at his dinner bowl and prodded at something with the end of his spoon. “I wonder what this was when it was alive?” He held it up toward the window to examine it, then flicked it off the spoon and onto the floor. One of the dogs trotted forward to examine it. “So,” continued Valens. “Where exactly is this unholy outer region?”

“It’s a fort called Ulucium. Apparently you go up to Coria and turn left at the border.”

“You’re going to some flea-bitten outpost beyond the last supply depot?”

“I’m told the area’s very beautiful.”

“Really? By whom?”

Ruso shrugged. “Just generally… by people who’ve been there.” He took refuge in another sip of wine.

Valens shook his head. “Oh, Ruso. When I told you women like to be listened to, I didn’t mean you should take any notice of what they say. Of course Tilla says it’s very beautiful. She probably wants to go home to visit all her little girlfriends so they can paint their faces blue and dance around the cooking pot, singing ancestor songs. You didn’t promise you’d take her home?”

“It’s only for a few months. There’s a couple of centuries going up to help revamp the fort, fix their plumbing, and encourage the taxpayers.”

“You did! You promised her, didn’t you?”

Ruso scratched the back of his ear. “I think I may have,” he confessed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Ruso took another mouthful of cold pie and wondered whether he should have listened to Valens rather than Tilla. From what he could gather, the principal activities of Tilla’s tribe were farming and fighting, fueled by rambling tales about glorious ancestors and a belief that things you couldn’t see were just as real as things you could. None of this had mattered much down in the relatively civilized confines of Deva, but as they traveled farther north, Tilla’s behavior had definitely begun to deteriorate.

Ruso glanced downward. Tilla’s muddy tunic was flapping heavily around her ankles. Thick brown liquid squelched out of her boots with every step.

He sighed, and balanced the remains of the pie on the front of the saddle. He reached out and touched her cheek just above the scrape. “I’ll clean that up when we stop. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“It was a soft landing, my lord. I do not see him coming, or I would fight back.”

Ruso was not as sorry about this as his housekeeper seemed to be.

“Why didn’t you buy food before we set out this morning?”

“There was a woman in labor in the night. I forgot.”