Ruth Downie - Terra Incognita

“And you are just as stupid as ever,” she retorted.

“You there! Stand up!”

Tilla put a hand on Rianorix’s shoulder to urge him to stay down. She gathered up her skirt and got to her feet.

“Come over here!”

She was aware of heads lifting, frightened eyes following her, bodies shuffling to let her pass as she picked her way across to where the guard stood. Before she was near enough to be hit, she stopped. “I would like to see the commanding officer,” she announced in Latin, her voice clear in the silent courtyard. “I have some information to offer him.”

It was still dark when Ruso realized that he was awake. This realization was followed by the niggling sensation that there were things he did not want to think about. But no matter how much he tried not to disturb them, the worries had woken with him and were already yawning, stretching, and preparing to accompany him for the rest of the day.

Tilla: his girl, who had run away to Rianorix when she was in trouble and was now held prisoner with other natives over at headquarters. The girl to whom he had rashly offered marriage and who hadn’t even noticed.

Thessalus: incurably sick and begging him to save the man who was stealing Tilla away from him.

Aemilia: betrayed by her lover and now, if he succeeded today, about to learn that she had been betrayed by her father as well.

Albanus: the clerk who was lying in bed with a fractured skull because of the inquiries he had made at Ruso’s request.

Catavignus: the murderer against whom there was no evidence.

Metellus: the schemer whose carefully planned security raid he had ruined.

Then there was the carpenter he had failed to save. Even when Ruso had been minding his own business, he hadn’t succeeded in doing anything useful.

He curled down under the covers and put his hands over his ears, but the whisper accusing him of being a bungling fool still filled his head. He came up for air, turned over, and sighed. He opened his eyes and stared at the looming shape of the barrel, just visible in the gray that was creeping around the edges of the shutters. He could only have been in bed an hour or two at the most, having been delayed at the infirmary dealing with injuries that were more the result of men charging around by moonlight with drawn weapons than of any resistance from the fleeing natives.

How could anyone feel this tired and yet not sleep?

He rolled onto his back and tried to breathe slowly and deeply.

Did you kill Felix?

Of course she heard, you idiot.

He sat up, punched his pillow until it was fat and soft, then threw himself back down on it and tried to convince himself that things were not so bad. He must pull himself together. Make the effort to find something to look forward to.

Batavian hospital porridge for breakfast was not much of a reason for rejoicing. It is officially summer was no better. You are getting out of this place soon was no consolation when he added, probably without Tilla. The dearth of any other reasons for cheer left him feeling more depressed than ever.

He had no idea how much time had passed when he heard movement in the next room. It seemed that Valens, who had spent what was left of the night on a mattress shifted into the treatment room, was no longer sleeping. Ruso glanced at the barrel. He could make out the iron hoop around the base now. He pushed back the covers.

It was dawn, Valens was already awake, and anyway, this was important.

Valens wandered back from the latrine and grunted when he saw Ruso. “Do they need both of us?”

“It’s not a call,” explained Ruso, sitting on the end of Valens’s mattress and wrapping his own blanket around his shoulders. It might be summer, but it was not warm.

“Good,” replied Valens, climbing back under the covers and hauling ineffectively at the other end of the blanket Ruso was sitting on. “Uh, gedoff.”

“It’s morning.”

“Go away.”

“You’re awake.”

“No’m not.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Me?”

“I know,” said Ruso. “But there isn’t anybody else.”

“It is all a bit of a mess,” agreed Valens. “You will keep getting involved in things, Ruso. Anybody’d think you didn’t have enough to do.”

“I was asked to take this on,” pointed out Ruso. “Well, some of it, anyway.”

“Still, look on the bright side. There’s a nine in ten chance that Tilla won’t be executed. Catavignus will probably forget what you said-”

“Aemilia won’t.”

“Well, if it’s true, she’d have to find out sometime, wouldn’t she? Best of all, the governor’ll be here today with the new man to run the infirmary, so you can clear off and leave it all behind.”

“But it’s not sorted out.”

“Never mind. You’ve done your best.”

“What am I going to say to Thessalus when he finds out they’re going to execute his brother-in-law?”

“You’ll think of something.” Valens yawned.

“Let’s go over it step by step.”

“Let’s go to sleep.”

“There’ll be time for sleeping later. Listen. I’m not meant to tell anybody this, but I suppose it won’t matter. Since you aren’t really anybody anyway.”

“Thanks.”

“Officially, I mean. Officially you’re not here. So listen. When Audax found Felix’s body, somebody had cut his head off with his own knife.”

“Oh dear. That’s messy.”

“Exactly. He was probably dead already by then, but even so, it would have been pretty messy. Rianorix could have just run off in the dark and gone home to clean himself up. But Catavignus-”

“Would have to change his clothes before going home in case he was seen,” said Valens. “Obviously. Are you telling me you haven’t thought of that before?”

“I only found out last night what a nasty piece of work he really is,” pointed out Ruso. “And the next minute somebody threw a sack over my head and tied me up.”

“I suppose that did make it difficult to get to dinner.”

“So, what happened to Catavignus’s bloodstained clothes?”

“Perhaps they went to the laundry.”

“There’s no laundry here.”

“Really? What do they do, then?”

“I don’t know. I just leave everything outside the door and it comes back clean a couple of days later.”

Valens sighed. “No laundry, no forum, no amphitheater, no decent shops… you know, I’m beginning to think women have a point.”

There was a clatter from the kitchen, followed by the screech of yesterday’s ashes being raked off the hearth. Ruso tried not to remember the comfort that morning sound had once given him. He said, “Tilla would say ask the staff. I need to find a way of questioning Catavignus’s housekeeper.”

“Only if you think any of this is actually worth the bother,” said Valens.

“How else can I prove that he’s guilty?”

“Never mind that. For some bizarre reason, you want to prove Catavignus guilty to save Rianorix. Yes?”

“I want to prove him guilty because he did it. But yes, there are reasons why Rianorix has to be helped off the hook.”

“But you already know they’re planning to nail Rianorix up on another charge. Really, Ruso. You might have bothered to think all this through before you woke me up.”

“I think we should both be trying to save a decent colleague from the disgrace of a false murder confession,” pointed out Ruso. “And for whatever reason, Rianorix was trying to help me last night. Metellus can say what he likes. There were plenty of other witnesses.” He got to his feet. “The trouble is, he’s the one they’ll believe. I need to talk to the prefect before Metellus gets to him.”