Ruth Downie: Terra Incognita

A muffled bellow of “Get me out! You’re all mad!” came from behind the door.

“Oh, good!” announced Tilla, secretly worried that his voice would carry into the street. They had no way of quieting him now: He had probably wrenched his hands free and the doorway was too narrow for more than one person at a time to tackle him. “You can talk to us! Perhaps you can tell us why we should not set light to the thatch and leave you to burn like you left my family!”

Ruso had nothing to lose now. Feeling slightly guilty about Valens’s complaints that he hadn’t meant he would cover all of Ruso’s duties, he walked out of the east gate and back to do battle with Catavignus. It was probably hopeless-why would a man confess when there was nothing to prove him guilty? — but he could not think of anything else to try.

There was no answer from the house next to the brewery. It seemed even the servant was out. He was about to try the brewery itself when he heard something odd going on behind it. Some sort of native chanting, interspersed with a rhythmic thump. The sound evoked the hideous memory of last night. He shuddered. He was about to turn back and fetch help when a voice he knew very well indeed called some sort of command. There was a pause, and then the chant began again. He hurried to the back of the brewery, flattened himself against the wall, then peered around into the yard.

A fierce fire was crackling in the stoke hole where he had groped in vain for the missing evidence this morning. Tilla and her friends were circling the malt house, chanting something over and over again, each of them clutching a burning brand in one hand. At the end of the chant they beat the brands against the thatch. Embers broke off. The larger pieces rolled down the thatch and fell into the mud beneath. The sparks and smaller chunks sank down into the straw. The chant began again, the circle moved on, and the thatch began to smolder.

Tilla, Aemilia, Ness the housekeeper, and Veldicca, the secret lover of Thessalus were circling around the malt house in some peculiar native ritual perhaps designed to call down the gods to save Rianorix. He supposed it had as much chance of success as anything he had tried himself.

It was only when he heard a muffled male shout that he realized they had somebody trapped in there.

“Stop!” he yelled, scrambling over the wall and dropping down into the brewery yard. The chant died. The women halted, looked first at him and then at Tilla, the smoking brands still raised in their hands.

“Help me!” cried the voice, in Latin this time. “Get me out!”

Aemilia looked flushed and excited. Tilla had a kitchen knife tucked in her belt, tangled hair, and an expression that suggested if he came too close, he would end up locked in the malt house himself.

“Help!” came Catavignus’s voice again. “Is there anybody out there?”

“It’s the doctor!” shouted Ruso.

“Apollo-Maponus be praised! They’re trying to roast me to death!” The door rattled. “Get the key!”

Ruso looked Tilla in the eye. “What are you doing?”

“This is justice.”

He took a step closer.

She reached for the knife.

Ruso moved to one side and saw the table wedged against the door. “This is murder.”

“He betrayed my family,” she said simply. “He cannot deny it.”

“I deny every word of it!” roared Catavignus. “Get me-” The sentence ended with a scream. “The roof’s on fire!”

Ruso seized one leg of the table and hauled it clear. As he moved toward the door two firebrands were thrust in front of his face and he felt the jab of Tilla’s knife over his right kidney. “This is our business,” hissed Tilla in his ear. “He is one of our people.”

“Bring him to the governor for trial,” insisted Ruso, straining away from the heat of the brands scorching his face. He could hear Catavignus coughing and beating on the door of the malt house.

“The law-”

“This is our law,” insisted Tilla. “You think we will get justice from you? He is a friend of the army. You will find an excuse-”

“Have him tried by the governor, Tilla. Otherwise you’ll all be in terrible trouble for this.”

“Why? What is one more dead native to the army?”

“Don’t be naive. He’s their friend. Their beer supplier.”

“Hah!” she said. “This is what I tell you, they will not kill him!”

Flames were rising from the thatch in several places. Catavignus seemed to be flinging himself against the door in a last desperate attempt to escape, and Ruso realized he had just argued himself into a circle.

He twisted around, trying to look her in the eye. “Tilla, I’m ordering you to hand over that key!”

She leaned over his shoulder. Her smile was almost pitying. He could not order her to do anything at all, and they both knew it. What he did not know was whether she was prepared to use that knife.

“Confess, man!” he yelled, tensing himself ready to flail and kick his way free. Even if she stabbed him, he might still be able to get over the wall and shout for help before they caught up with him. “Confess and-”

“Stand aside!” roared a voice he was not expecting. A squad of soldiers vaulted over the walls of the yard and surrounded the women with the points of their spears. Audax stepped forward, jammed a crowbar under the door lock, and prized it open. A filthy figure stumbled out in a billow of smoke, choking and gasping for air.

Audax was giving orders for the fire to be put out and Ruso was extricating himself from among the women when Metellus appeared at the back entrance of the brewery. He saw Tilla and shook his head sadly. “What did I say to you earlier?”

“He is a murderer,” said Tilla. “He betrayed my family. You heard Trenus say it!”

Metellus frowned. “Did I?”

“Stop playing games with her, Metellus,” put in Ruso. “He killed Felix as well.”

Metellus sighed. “I might have known I’d find you here in the middle of it.”

Ruso seized the spluttering Catavignus by the shoulder. “Susanna says you were there delivering the beer when Rianorix came and threatened Felix,” he said. “But when I first met you, you told the barber you didn’t know anything about it.”

“I can’t remember.”

Ruso hauled him to his feet and dragged him across to the water trough. When the latest soldier had filled his firefighting bucket, he plunged Catavignus headfirst into the cold water. The man’s arms flailed wildly while his long hair floated on the surface like waterweed. Ruso pulled him out again. “That should help clear the smoke from your eyes,” he said. “Felix had his debts list with him when he saw Dari. It wasn’t on his body. You destroyed it so you wouldn’t have to pay the builder.”

“The builder was useless!”

Whatever else Catavignus had to say about the builder rose as bubbles. When he emerged, gasping, Ruso pushed his nose toward the malt grains bobbing on the surface. “Tell the truth!”

“Help me!” shouted Catavignus. “Metellus! Tell him to stop!”

Metellus folded his arms and leaned back against the wall of the brewery.

Strands of wet gray hair were plastered down Catavignus’s face as Ruso yanked him upward. “Gambax saw you with Felix that night.” said Ruso.

“Nonsense! I was never-”

Ruso put him under the water again, trying to think what he could say that would compel Catavignus to confess. Pulling him out, he said, “Gambax has been arrested for attacking my clerk. He’s singing like the wind in the trees, trying to do a deal. So it doesn’t matter. We don’t need your confession, we’ve got a witness.”

“I need protection!” Catavignus spluttered, squirming in Ruso’s grip. “I demand protection! Metellus, tell him who I am!”