Ruth Downie - Terra Incognita

Susanna, clearing a space on the table for more dirty crockery, greeted Ruso and Valens with obvious relief.

“I have never, ever looked at another woman since I saw…” Catavignus’s expression slowly rearranged itself into one of surprise. “Doctor! The food’s all gone. We’ll find you a drink.” Raising one finger to indicate a pause, he leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look well.”

Catavignus was effusive in his sympathy when he heard about the fictitious riding accident. Ruso doubted he would remember it-or very much else-in the morning. Finally Ruso suggested that the two medics would walk Catavignus back to his house.

“I’m very busy,” said Catavignus, indicating the kitchen with another expansive sweep of the arm. “Lots to be done. Clearing up.”

“Oh, clearing up is for women and servants,” said Ruso. “Come on, we’ll walk back with you. You can show us around the brewery.”

Catavignus nodded. “Good idea,” he said. “Very good-oops. Can’t get up. Very low chair.”

As Ruso and Valens took an arm each and hauled him up and out of the kitchen, Susanna gave them the sort of smile Catavignus was probably hoping for and was never going to get.

Ruso had no particular plan when he extricated Catavignus from Susanna’s kitchen and waved aside the servants who had offered to help. He merely hoped that, since the man was probably guilty and definitely drunk, some sort of admission might slip out. Had he been less tired himself, and in less of a state of nerves after his ordeal with the natives, he might have been able to devise an ingenious sequence of questions that would lead to a confession. As it was, he could only interrupt Catavignus’s sentimental ramblings with a heavy-handed, “Just as well there’s three of us. You know what happened to Felix.”

“Felix!” exclaimed Catavignus, tripping over an invisible obstacle and sending the three of them lurching sideways into the empty street. “Dead.”

“What exactly was it the natives did to him?” demanded Valens, steering back in the right direction and oblivious to Ruso glaring at him across the back of Catavignus’s neck. “Nobody seems to know.”

“Nobody knows,” said Catavignus, shaking his head. “Nobody knows about Felix. Terrible.”

“What do you think happened to him?” asked Ruso.

“From what I hear,” chipped in Valens before the suspect had time to answer, “It was quite unpleasant-steady now. Right turn. Nearly there. Shall I knock?’

“When was the last time you saw him?” asked Ruso.

“Can’t see anybody now,” said Catavignus. “Very tired. Always tired after the guild of caterers’ parties. It’s all the organizing, you know.”

The servant was unbolting the door. Running out of time, Ruso tried one last desperate move. “Catavignus,” he said, twisting to look into the man’s face and enunciating his words very clearly, “Did you kill Felix?”

Catavignus looked past him and smiled. “Aemilia!” he exclaimed. “Ut vales, filia mea?”

“Of course she heard, you idiot!” hissed Valens, pulling up the blankets over the now snoring Catavignus. “Why do you think she rushed off to her room? What on earth got into you to say something like that?”

“Because it’s true,” muttered Ruso miserably. It seemed a poor justification. Aemilia had already endured the loss of both her lover and her dignity. Now he had given her fresh cause for grief.

“Perhaps,” suggested Valens softly, “you might do me the honor of joining me in our host’s reception room to consume some of his wine and explain what on earth is going on.”

“I’ll tell you on the way back,” said Ruso.

“Back to where?”

“The infirmary. They’ll need some help treating the injured.”

There were thirty-four of them. Tilla knew that because she had heard the guards counting them as they were herded into the corner of the big courtyard where she had seen the men lined up to be identified.

The army did not seem impressed with their prisoners. They had captured mostly old people and mothers with young children: the ones who had not been able to run fast enough. The storyteller and the naked warriors had vanished into the night.

When the soldiers charged, Rianorix had grabbed her and tried to shield her. By the time they scrambled to their feet they found two Batavians with drawn swords standing guard over them. The soldiers had laughed-not kindly-when they recognized Rianorix.

She lifted her head. The moon was being assisted by smoky torches, and all around her the yellow light flickered over shapes huddled on the cold gravel, sharing whatever cloaks and blankets they had managed to keep hold of in an effort to keep warm.

The old man next to her heaved and coughed, the jerking of his head made visible in the darkness by the white stripe of bandage. When the doctors had been allowed in to treat the injured, she had feigned a sprained wrist, but the medicus was not there and Valens only had a chance to murmur, “Are you all right?” before assigning her to a bandager and turning his attention to the next person in the line.

She had wanted to talk to the medicus. To explain to him that these people did not deserve to be punished. They were ordinary families: farmers and weavers and carpenters gathered for a traditional celebration spiced with the excitement of secrecy-and, yes, with the camaraderie that came from sharing their complaints about the Romans. But the celebration had become something she could not have foreseen. Under the leadership of the Stag Man, or the Messenger, or whatever he called himself, these ordinary folk had taken the medicus prisoner, worked themselves up into a frenzy, and threatened to murder him. As the big soldier she remembered from the clinic looped a bandage around her thumb and back around her wrist, she tried to think what she could say in her people’s defense. There was not a lot.

Within what seemed minutes of arriving, the medical staff had been ordered to leave. “We just want them alive enough to talk,” one of the officers had explained to Valens.

“You know who they will want us to talk about,” she whispered to Rianorix.

“They won’t find out anything,” Rianorix assured her. “Nobody knows where he comes from. He’s very careful.”

“But they all suffer for him.”

“If we want freedom, sister, some of us will have to be prepared to suffer.”

It sounded like a speech he had heard at a meeting. “But not him,” said Tilla. “He is very careful.”

They paused as a guard walked past. When he had gone Rianorix hissed, “He is our best hope. What is the matter with you?”

“There is nothing the matter with me!” she retorted in his ear, frustrated at the constrictions placed on the argument by the need not to be overheard. “You are the one who needs to open your eyes. I can see that he is bringing nothing but trouble.”

“And what do your friends the Romans bring?”

She grabbed his wrist. “The Romans are not my-”

“No talking!” called out one of the guards. As one of the people translated the order for the benefit of those without Latin, he yelled again, “I said, no talking!”

Over in the corner, a baby began to cry. A small voice wailed, “I’m cold!”

There were several hisses of, “Sh!”

The old man began to cough again.

Thirty-four people. Children and mothers and grandparents.

He is our best hope.

Thirty-four people.

We just want them alive enough to talk.

“The Romans are not my friends,” she breathed. “But I am not fool enough to follow everyone who opposes them.”

“You are much changed, daughter of Lugh.”