Ruth Downie: Terra Incognita

“It was dark when they saw this-thing?”

“But every one of them described it the same way. That’s not all. There’s an outpost where the whole unit fell ill, including the medic.”

Ruso ignored the gibe.

“Turned out there was a dead wolf in the water channel,” said Postumus. “But it couldn’t have got in there by itself. Someone had replaced the cover stone and laid a set of antlers on top. Then there’s a tax collector who got ambushed. He saw him too.”

“Who’s going to believe a tax collector?”

The centurion grunted. “I’m just telling you what I heard. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But like I said, I don’t reckon matey on the horse is anything to worry about.”

“No,” agreed Ruso. “The lack of antlers would seem to support you there.”

“I reckon,” continued Postumus, “that he’s some scabby little Brit who thinks he’s clever. We’ll go across and give him a surprise later on. When we’re good and ready.”

Privately Ruso thought that if the scabby little Brit really were clever, he would play along with the rumors by strapping something spiky to his head. Deciding not to bother Postumus with this thought, he said, “So we’ve been sent up here to steady a few nerves.”

“ I’ve been sent,” corrected Postumus, edging his horse sideways to steer around a minor landslip where the curb had begun to collapse into the ditch. “I heard you volunteered. Don’t know what the hell for. Specially with that girl of yours.”

“I heard there’s more action up on the border,” said Ruso, not keen to get into a discussion about Tilla.

A grin made its way around the nose. “Not enough bodies for you back at base, eh?”

Ruso sighed. He had never wanted to get tangled up in that business of the murdered barmaid. Now, no matter how often he denied it, it seemed everyone in the Twentieth legion knew him as the medicus with as much interest in dead patients as live ones. “Last month,” he explained, “a man turned up on my doorstep with the corpse of his girlfriend’s cat, and asked me to find out who’d poisoned it.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“Heard you didn’t have much luck pinning down who killed that barmaid, either.”

“I don’t investigate dead cats,” said Ruso, who knew far more about the barmaid than Postumus suspected. “I’ve got better things to do.”

“Well, perhaps you can track down matey with the antlers.” Postumus was scanning the horizon, presumably looking out for the scabby little Brit so he could carry on ignoring him.

Ruso let the centurion ride on ahead before making another futile attempt to scratch his back. There was a suspicious tickling sensation on the lower right-hand side of his ribcage now. Almost as irritating as the itching was the fact that he had not noticed any of this until after they had set out this morning. Otherwise he would have cornered that lying innkeeper and demanded a refund.

For a moment he had been alarmed by the way Postumus’s stories echoed Tilla’s. Now, thinking about it logically, he realized that Tilla must have heard those same stories from other travelers. Her vision in the yard last night had not been an apparition sent to inspire her or to terrorize the army, but the result of frightening rumors working on the uneducated native imagination. The only mysterious creature at the inn had been the common but strangely invisible bedbug-and if she did not mention the bites, neither would he. She would only gloat.

Officer Metellus was able to name Felix’s murderer by the start of the third watch. It was a native. His identification had not been difficult, since he was not the brightest of men. Plenty of people had heard him pick a quarrel with the victim in a local snack bar only hours before the body was found. Several of the witnesses could remember the exact wording of the threats he had made.

Unfortunately, as Prefect Decianus of the Tenth Batavians observed over his lunch tray, naming the murderer did not solve the problem.

“We’ll pick him up soon, sir,” promised Metellus, who had not been invited to share the frugal offering of bread and black olives. “All our contacts know who to look for, and I’ve got men watching the house.”

Decianus tore a chunk off the bread. “Audax wants to round up twenty natives and execute one every watch until someone tells us where he is.”

Metellus frowned. “I don’t think the governor would approve, sir. His orders are-”

“I don’t need you to tell me what the governor’s orders are, Metellus. Obviously we aren’t going to do that. Not without approval. I’ll send a message down and see what he says.”

“I’ve already done that.”

Decianus glanced at him. “I don’t suppose we’ll get much of an answer till he gets here to see for himself. And I want to have this cleared up by that time anyway.” He dropped the bread back onto the tray. “Where’s the body now?”

“In the mortuary. Audax is guarding the door. Nobody else has been allowed anywhere near it.”

Decianus pondered that for a moment. “What are the men saying?”

Metellus said, “We’re putting it out that it was just a quarrel in a bar, sir.”

“And do they believe it?”

“Probably not.”

“I want it made absolutely clear that we’re dealing with a simple backstreet brawl. There’s nothing mysterious about the way the native cursed our man, and there is no connection between this business and anything else they may have heard.”

“I’ll do my best sir,” agreed Metellus. “But judging by the number of civilians lining up to make devotions to the gods, it’s not going to be easy.”

Decianus sighed. “Tell me this isn’t happening, Metellus.”

“It’ll be better when we arrest the native, sir.”

“It’ll be better when you find our missing item.”

Metellus said, “It’s nowhere in his house. I’ve got two men covering the road between here and there, and another three covering the streets, spreading out from where the body was found.” He raised a hand to silence the objection the prefect was about to make. “It’s all right, I haven’t told them anything. Their orders are to search for evidence of anything the native might have stolen from the victim, then bring it back and say nothing.”

Decianus picked up an olive, examined it for a moment, then flung it back into the bowl. It bounced off the rim, missed the desk, and skittered across the floorboards. “We should have seen this coming.”

“My people can’t be everywhere, sir. The native wasn’t on our list as anybody important.”

As Decianus was saying, “Well he’s found a way of making himself important now,” there was a knock on his office door. Apparently the fort doctor urgently wished to speak with him.

Decianus frowned. “I suppose he’s come to complain about having a centurion keeping him out of his mortuary.”

The young soldier in the doorway hesitated, evidently not sure whether the prefect was always right or whether his staff were expected to warn him when he wasn’t. Finally he said, “Not exactly, sir.”

Decianus brushed breadcrumbs from his tunic. He had not been impressed by Doctor Thessalus’s recent performance. The man was due to be replaced in a few days when the governor arrived, and Decianus was not sorry. “Very well,” he said, sliding the tray aside. “Send him in.”

The state in which Thessalus appeared before him did nothing to improve his opinion. “Stand easy,” he ordered.

Thessalus, who had not been standing as straight as he might, relaxed even further. The glare of the guard who had marched him in suggested that he would very much like to seize this excuse for an officer and straighten him up again.