Ruth Downie - Terra Incognita

There was no way to run from this. He would have to hope that Tilla was here and would help him talk his way out of it. And that none of these people had seen him in yesterday’s hunting party.

He swung down from the horse and led it in through the entrance. Two men carrying heavy sticks approached him. “I’ve come to fetch Darlughdacha,” he shouted over the sound of the dog, hoping he’d got the name right and they understood Latin.

“What do you want with her?”

Other men appeared, surrounding him. A couple were eyeing his horse. A man with a bent nose nudged his companion and nodded toward the frantic dog, raising his hand to his throat and making a slashing motion. His companion nodded. The man with the bent nose strode away.

Ruso said, “Her family have sent a message.”

“What is this message?”

“Hurry up and come with me or she’ll be late for dinner.”

Some of the men chuckled. Behind them, he could see a woman asking a companion what he had said. Farther up the yard the dog yelped and fell silent.

A figure emerged from beneath the dilapidated porch of the house. As it approached Ruso could see that the black eye was fading to yellow. The lip was healing.

“She has nothing to say to you,” said Rianorix. As he added, “You are not welcome here,” Tilla came out of the house and walked down to stand beside him, still wearing the dress that matched her eyes.

Ruso made an effort to keep his voice calm. “I don’t believe you killed the soldier,” he said to Rianorix. “If it’s any consolation, Aemilia says she didn’t mean any of it to happen. Now if you value either of the girls as much as you say you do, you’ll let Tilla come back with me and go to her uncle’s dinner.”

“I have always said that I did not kill the soldier. And I know what Aemilia meant. But now your men have put that soldier’s head in a sack outside my house because they want to execute a native man and not their own officer.”

“I think someone else did that,” said Ruso. He wanted to say “Gambax did that,” but found he could not. On reflection, it did seem very unlikely that anybody would murder someone over a few amphorae of wine. “In the meantime,” he continued on safer ground, “Thessalus is doing his best to save your miserable ungrateful skin in the hope that you’ll manage to do something sensible for once and look after your sister. Frankly I think the poppy’s addled his brain. But if that’s what he wants, I’ll help him. I don’t like you, and I don’t think you deserve help, but I seem to be on your side.”

Rianorix put his arm around Tilla and gave a lopsided smile. “Look around you, soldier. It is too late. The gods have woken. The people are gathering. We don’t need your help.”

Ruso glanced around at the armed men, the women bustling about with jugs and bowls, the youths discussing the horses tethered under the trees, and the throng of children chasing one another around the pasture.

He looked at Tilla, standing with the native in the place where they had been brought up together. Playmates. Friends. Lovers. A shared history into which he, who had only known her a matter of months, was struggling to intrude. He said, “I’m surprised to see you letting a man speak for you, Tilla.”

She laid a hand on Rianorix’s shoulder and then stepped away from him. “I will escort you down the path,” she said. “You should not have come here.”

She said something to the other men in her own language. They dropped back, but he heard their footfalls behind him as she led him back toward the gate.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he urged her.

“These are my people. This is my uncle’s land. The house that was on my land is burned again. By you, this time.”

“Stay away from him, Tilla.”

“This is my home.”

“This is an illegal gathering. There are far too many people and there’s nobody here to supervise it. Metellus is bound to have informers here. Don’t get involved.”

“Is a feast and a bonfire,” she said. “This is what we do. We do not need the army’s help to welcome summer.”

“Come back with me now, before it’s too late. You can put on one of Aemilia’s fancy outfits and we’ll go to the caterer’s dinner together. If you really want, I could think about getting married.”

He could hardly believe he had said it. Perhaps he hadn’t. Tilla did not seem to have noticed. All she said was, “I will not dine with that man.”

“Trenus won’t be there. I’ve found him and I’ve spoken to him. He won’t come near you.”

“I am talking about my uncle.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Does it matter what you think of your uncle? Come back with me now before you get yourself onto one of Metellus’s security lists.”

“I was listening outside the window when Trenus was visiting the brewery. My uncle is shouting, ‘You were supposed to deal with her.’ ”

“With who?”

“Me. Trenus is supposed to get rid of me in the raid. With my family all dead, there is nobody to argue with my uncle. Nobody to cause trouble.”

“Tilla, that’s…” Ruso stopped. It was not preposterous. It made perfect sense of something Trenus had said.

“And then my uncle opened the door and saw me, and he knew I had heard.”

“Trenus told me you were supposed to have gone up in smoke with the rest of them,” he said. “Are you saying your uncle deliberately set the raid up?”

“Now you see why I will not come back.”

“He did that to his own brother?”

“Yes. That is why he came too late to help. Why he never sent for me.”

Ruso scratched one ear. He had seen Catavignus as ambitious rather than ruthless, but if he were really prepared to sacrifice his own family…

He rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had been a fool. It was obvious. There was Felix’s unsuitable courtship of Aemilia. The missing list of debtors. Catavignus’s desire to get rid of rebel sympathizers. “I have to get back,” he said. “I have to talk to-”

His mind formed the word Susanna, but before it reached his lips, something crashed against the back of his skull and the ground rose up to meet him.

There was a squeak and a grinding, and the pig carcass over the fire began to turn.

“And then when she had taken a drink from the cup she handed it to her bridegroom, and-” The old man who was telling the story stopped and scowled at the boy clutching the handle of the spit. The carcass rolled back into its former position, rocking violently with its truncated legs splayed in the air. Dripping fat crackled and hissed into the embers, which flared in the fading light.

“And the bridegroom drank from the cup too. And she laughed when she saw that he had drunk all of the poison, and she said, ‘This is my vengeance for the wrong you did me!’ Then she died and went to rejoin her true husband, and the bridegroom died there too, in front of all the guests, and instead of holding a wedding feast they held…”

“A funeral!” shouted several voices.

“A funeral,” agreed the old man solemnly.

This dismal tale of justice and revenge was a familiar favorite, and there were murmurs of appreciation and a few cheers from the old man’s supporters among the crowd gathered around the fires. Someone else stepped up to sing a song.

Tilla glanced over her shoulder toward the house. The moon was clear now but her eyes were still dazzled by the bright flames and it was difficult to make sense of the silver and black world beyond them. She thought she could make out the shapes of the guards standing by the sagging porch. She wondered how the medicus was feeling. Alone in the dark house, listening to the crowd outside filling up with beer and bravado, he would be afraid.