Ruth Downie: Terra Incognita

“Very lucky, sir.”

He wondered what Albanus would think if he knew that he had been paid with Tilla’s stolen money for being willing to get up and fetch Ruso-who should have been in one of the tents-if a doctor were needed. “I don’t suppose you got much sleep anyway,” he ventured.

Albanus smiled. “Oh, I was fine, sir. My mother says I’ve always been the same. Once I’m off, nothing ever wakes-” He stopped.

Ruso hid his amusement. “I see.”

“I would have got up, sir, of course-”

“I’m sure you would,” said Ruso, truthfully. There was no fun in teasing Albanus. It was like poking a kitten with a stick. He slapped at his elbow. The itch shrank away for a few seconds, then crept back.

The road was still running along high ground, offering views to either side that would have been dramatic had there been anything new to look at. But even native house fires were no longer a novelty. There was another one now. A fresh plume of thick black smoke rushing skyward from a settlement in the middle distance. It was hardly surprising that people who insisted on lighting fires in the middle of thatched huts would have mishaps, but as they drew closer he could make out a squad of men clad in armor marching away down the valley, ignoring the frantic figures who were trying to beat out the flames.

It occurred to him that perhaps some of the other fires had not been accidents either. Everyone said the natives were more difficult to manage in the north.

Ruso yawned. He had not slept well. Tilla had finally consented to join him in the bed, but his efforts to warm her up had led to an unexpected cry of “Cernunnos!” at a crucial moment, and somehow despite her insistence that this was the name of the god she had seen in the yard, it had still put him off his stroke. Unabashed, she had proceeded to speculate about what this divine visitation might mean. His insistence on resuming his own more earthly visitation was greeted with tolerance rather than enthusiasm.

She had woken him again in the middle of the night, babbling in British. It was a moment before he realized she was talking in her sleep, no doubt to some god with antlers. After she fell silent he had lain awake in the dark, telling himself that it was completely irrational to be jealous of a trick of the light, and that he was only starting to wonder if she really had seen something because he was not properly awake himself.

Another itch had sprouted in the hollow between his shoulder blades. When the column stopped for water, he would have to dig out his baggage and try and find some calming ointment. In the meantime, his fingers slid up between two of the layers of iron plates, but they were now trapped at an awkward angle and he could not move them enough to have any effect. Twisting sideways, he tried plunging the hand down the back of his neck instead. The probing fingers fell just short of their destination.

Several instruments that would have done the job safely were in his medical case, but that was back on one of the carts. He tried grabbing the top and bottom of his tunic, and pulling it taut while wriggling against it like a cow trying to scratch itself on a gate. That did not work either.

Finally he thumped at his back with his fist before noticing that several of the legionaries tromping up the slope beside him were watching with interest. Among them was his clerk.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Fine, thank you, Albanus.” He wondered whether to add, “Just doing some morning stretches,” but decided that would make it worse.

He urged the horse forward, musing upon the pointlessness of formal education. Instead of wasting time arguing over dilemmas unrelated to real life, bright young minds should be set useful questions. Questions such as: A man is offered a chance to share a room with a bad-tempered woman and several biting insects, or a tent with his comrades and a large quantity of rainwater. Which should he choose?

Moments later he was level with a centurion whose nose appeared to have been attached to his face as an afterthought. This was Postumus, the man in whose tent he had failed to appear last night. Ruso was anticipating some cutting comment on his absence, but Postumus was busy scowling at the horizon.

“Little bugger,” Postumus observed.

Following the centurion’s gaze, Ruso saw the lone rider still silhouetted against the gathering clouds. “There’s something to be said for joining the cavalry,” he said.

“He’s not cavalry.”

“No?” At this distance, it was impossible to make out whether the horseman was carrying weapons. “Who is he, then?”

“That’s exactly what he wants us to ask.”

“Ah,” said Ruso, surprised to find he had fallen into some sort of trap. Then, as the outline of the horse narrowed and began to sink into the rise of the hill, “He’s going.”

“He’ll pop up again farther along,” said Postumus. “Always where we can see him and always just out of range. He’s following us.”

“I’ve seen him before,” said Ruso.

“One of the patrols went after him yesterday and he outran them. Vanished into the woods and couldn’t be tracked.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“Well, he’s not a lookout,” said Postumus. “They’d use some snot-nosed little goatherd for that.”

“They?”

“The natives,” said Postumus. “I reckon all that one wants is to get on our nerves.”

“Ah.”

“Which is why, for the time being, we’re ignoring him.”

“Right,” said Ruso, guessing that the watcher’s presence had been the cause of yesterday’s unexplained order to don helmets. “So we do know who he is.”

“If you’d been where you were supposed to be last night, you’d know what I know. Nice and cozy up at the inn, were you?”

“Very,” said Ruso, suddenly unable to resist wriggling under his armor. “Kind of you to ask.”

Postumus was looking at him oddly. “Something the matter with you?”

“Me? No.”

“Uh.”

They rode on in silence for a while, then Postumus said, “You haven’t heard what’s going on, then?”

“What?”

“You might want to think about making an offering to Fortuna next time you get a chance,” added Postumus. “Or whatever god you think might be listening up here.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” promised Ruso, deducing that he was being punished for sleeping under a solid roof last night.

“Not that our lads are worried,” added Postumus.

“Of course not,” agreed Ruso.

“But the units stationed up here are pretty jumpy.”

Ruso felt his resolve slipping away. Eventually he said, “What aren’t we worried about, exactly?”

“You really want to know?”

“Go on then.”

“The story I heard…”

The story Postumus had heard began with an army transport convoy making its way to a base at the opposite end of the border. The convoy had been delayed by a breakdown and was still an hour away as darkness fell. They were making good progress when a sudden shower of burning arrows rained down on the carts, and a fire broke out in the straw packing around a consignment of oil jars. Postumus described what ensued as “a fine old fry-up” and in the chaos that followed nobody noticed that the guards on the rear vehicle had been knifed and the cargo stolen. Nobody could remember seeing any of the attackers.

“So next morning they do a security roundup and most of the natives don’t know a thing, as usual. But after a bit of expert prompting they start talking about a strange figure riding past in the half-light, and they swear he had antlers and he’s a messenger from the gods.”

“Antlers?”

“Nobody took much notice until a couple of the guards on the transport said they saw the same thing, only they didn’t speak up in case people thought they were crazy.”