Ruth Downie - Terra Incognita

“Hah!”

“Not only that, but I hear you’ve got important friends. I hear the governor’s invited you to dine with him in the fort.”

“What’s that got to do with you?” repeated Trenus.

“Nothing,” said Ruso. “I’m just a humble medic.” He pointed at the woman hiding behind the bar, whom he suspected of clutching some kind of hidden weapon. “She’ll tell you all about Doctor Ruso. Specialist in potions and poisons, temporarily in charge of the fort medical service.”

Trenus glanced at the woman as if he were wondering whether to believe any of this.

“Did you know there are some poisons so deadly that a man can be killed just by having a vessel painted with it touch his lips?”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?” Ruso smiled. “Enjoy your dinner, Trenus.”

Back at the house next to the brewery, Ruso informed Ness that as a legionary officer he was ordering her mistress to talk to him.

“My mistress is not in the army.”

“Tell her it’s about stolen jewelry and withholding evidence from a murder inquiry.”

Moments later, Aemilia appeared. She had taken out the curling rags. Her eyes were wide with alarm and fresh paint beneath the unnaturally springy hair. “I didn’t know it was stolen!” she began. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Can I come inside? You won’t want to discuss this on the doorstep.”

Aemilia glanced over her shoulder at Ness, and then stepped back to allow him in. Ness ushered them both into a small room painted dark red and crammed with furniture. Ruso sat on an overstuffed couch that had been polished into slipperiness, and Aemilia seated herself in a wicker chair on the far side of a flotilla of small tables. Ruso wondered whether Rianorix had woven that chair.

She said, “About yesterday. You called at a bad time. I was upset.”

He said, “I know. I’m not worried about who the ring belonged to, but I have to ask you some questions. It’s very important for Rianorix’s sake that we find out exactly what happened on the night Felix died. You saw Felix that night, didn’t you?”

Her fingers strayed toward her mouth. “Yes.”

“Did he come here, or did you meet somewhere else?”

Her voice was very small. “He came here.”

“Do you know if anyone else saw him? Anyone hanging around, or visiting the house? Gambax from the infirmary does business with your father, doesn’t he?”

“Not that night. There were no visitors.” She ran a hand through the artificial curls. A long pin dropped out and landed in her lap. She picked it up and twirled it between thumb and finger. “He said we would get married,” she said.

Ruso tried to think of something comforting to say. Instead all he could come up with was, “Who do you think killed him, Aemilia?”

There was an audible click as she bit through a fingernail. “I never meant all this to happen.”

“I don’t think Rianorix did either. He was only asking him for money.”

She frowned. “For money?”

“For five cows.”

“Then it was all lies,” she said flatly. “Everything he said was a lie.”

Ruso waited, not sure which of the men she was talking about.

“I have tried to tell myself Felix meant what he said,” she continued, “even though it was not his ring. But that is the honor price. He must have told Rianorix he would never marry me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruso, ashamed of having upset the girl and still no further forward in the hunt for the murderer.

She said, “Rianorix was asking the proper compensation to the family for a broken promise of marriage.”

Ruso leaned back. The back of the couch creaked under his weight. He wondered if Felix had grasped the importance of what was being asked of him. “What if that compensation was refused?”

“I don’t know. My uncle used to say that in the old days the Druids brought justice. I suppose they would ask the man’s people to pay.” She looked at Ruso helplessly. “But the Druids are gone, and Felix’s tribe is across the sea. The army wouldn’t pay us, would they?”

“No.”

Her chin rose. “Then he got the punishment he deserved,” she said. “I must tell Rianorix I am sorry.”

“Who killed Felix, Aemilia?”

She picked up the hairpin and a comb. “The Stag Man,” she said. “Now, would you like to know where to find my cousin?”

Tilla knew neither of the muscular young men who blocked her path, but she recognized some of the faces of the people gathering around them. There was one of the women she had seen at the clinic. There was the husband, whose nose her brother had knocked to one side. Another was a neighbor from across the hill who had been one of the children piling onto the swing in the oak tree outside her house when the rope broke and they all fell in a heap in the mud. The others were strangers. Finally Rianorix, busy chaining up the barking dog, noticed the cluster of people around the gate and headed down to see what was going on.

“I am Darlughdacha,” she told them. “Come home to join the Gathering.”

“We know that,” said the man with the bent nose. “And we know you traveled here with the legionaries.”

“We all have to survive as best we can in these times.”

“We heard that you were living behind their walls down in Deva.”

“That is true.”

“So why are you here?”

Tilla looked him in the eye. “This is my uncle’s land,” she said. “And that paddock and the house beyond it are on the land that was farmed by my family. Why are you here?”

“You must have seen many things inside the fort,” said one of the strangers, tucking his thumbs in his belt. “You will know how the soldiers store and prepare their weapons. How they send messages and arrange their supplies. How they order their guards.”

“I was a housekeeper,” she said. “I can only tell you how they prepare their dinner.”

“You walked through the fort with your eyes shut?” demanded the man with the bent nose.

“I find it is the best way,” said Tilla. “Then I cannot identify people and get them into trouble. And if my brother were here he would knock you down again for insulting me.”

The woman said, “Let her stay and help me until the Messenger gets here. Then we can ask him.”

“She could be a spy,” pointed out her husband.

“What is the matter with you all?” demanded Rianorix. “We know her.”

“You could be a spy too,” grumbled the man. “Why was it they let you go, eh? Did you do a deal with them?”

“Of course he did not!” retorted Tilla. “Even the Romans understand that the gods made someone else execute that soldier after Rianorix fasted against him. First you insult me, then you insult a man whom the gods have favored. You should be more careful.”

The grumbler scowled. The wife offered Tilla a small shrug of apology. One by one, they stepped back out of her path.

Tilla entered the gate and followed the path toward the house that had been commandeered from her unsuspecting uncle and his servants. She had passed the servants on the road, hurrying into town. They had been given an urgent message summoning them to help with the guild of caterers dinner. She had not believed a word of it, but they had, and they would not be back until morning.

Ruso must have looked anxious because the owner of We Sell Everything called after him, “All right, sir?” as he sprinted past on his way back to the fort.

When he found her, he would tell her how he had tackled Trenus for her, while Rianorix had fled to save himself and left her behind. He would not mention that he had been there when Rianorix’s house was burned. If she did not know that, she would not ask what he had done to prevent it, and he would not have to admit that he had done nothing at all.