Ruth Downie - Medicus

"One of childbearing age?" persisted Ruso.

Valens shrugged. "Two thousand, if you can find the right buyer. Three or four maybe, if she can actually do something."

"Exactly," said Ruso, and dipped the pen in the inkwell.

Finally alone, Ruso started the Fatality Report. The first stroke of the first letter slid down the sheet and ended in a quivering black blob. He rested the pen on the edge of the desk while he blotted the page with a soft rag. A glance at the shelf told him there were no spare sheets. Of course not. The chief administrator had probably taken the key to the stationery cupboard too. Ruso held the sliver of wood over the lamp flame to hurry the drying of the blot and wondered what the girl'ssmile was like.

The blot was obliterated by a scorch mark. He swore.

This time the stroke started well enough, but the ink began to falter halfway down. He pressed harder. The nib scraped the wood, leaving a blank indentation like a dry riverbed. The dead cavalryman deserved better than this. He dipped the pen in the inkpot and tapped it against the edge.

Gods above, Ruso, you are hopeless.

He wasn't completely hopeless. He'd managed three years of marriage. Whereas Valens was still single at thirty-two and any woman willing to marry him would need her sanity examined. So would the second spear, if he gave his permission.

A fine neat stroke this time, cutting across the sepia edge of the scorch mark. That was better. He was making progress now.

The pen jolted between his fingers and stopped working. A second attempt at the stroke made an ink less scratch. Ruso lifted the pen to eye level and squinted at the nib. It was bent at an impossible angle. He flung it into the corner where it made a splash of black as it bounced off the plaster, missed the wastebasket, and rolled across the floor.

Claudia would never have approved of this line of business, you know. He must stop showing an interest in slave girls. He would become a source of amusement.

The next pen had a nib that wobbled about. The third proved to be an inky stick with no nib at all.

Ruso sent the stool crashing back onto the floorboards, wrenched open the door, and roared, "Can't anybody get anything organized in this bloody place?" to an empty corridor.

Athrush was singing its early song in the hospital garden. The girl who had decided they could call her Tilla lay with her eyes closed, letting the music lift her above the dull ache in her arm. The bed was comfortable. She felt clean for the first time in weeks. It occurred to her that she was happy.

The feeling was followed by a flush of shame. She had no right to be happy. This white room with the square window was only a temporary resting place.

The Roman healers had, for reasons that were not clear to her, chosen to delay her arrival in the next world. Three times now she had allowed her thirst to defeat her resolve, reached out her good hand and drunk the barley water they had left in the black jug. When the serious one had sat on the bed and fed her with a spoon like a child, she had accepted a few mouthfuls of salty broth. After he had gone, she had struggled out of the bed, picked up the bowl, and tipped the contents out the window.

She opened her eyes. This morning's bowl of gruel was still untouched on the table. This time there was a plain bone comb beside it. She swung her feet down onto the wooden floor and paused with her head bowed until the giddiness passed. Moments later, the thrush's song died as the latest meal slid out of the bowl to join the others under the lavender bush.

By the time she fell back onto the bed she was sweating and exhausted. She closed her eyes and leaned against the white wall. She must not weaken. In the next world, the others were waiting.

Ruso paused in the doorway of the admissions hall and eyed the three very young soldiers who were standing stiffly against the wall. Over the murmur of conversation that echoed around the hall he inquired, "Are you here for me?"

"Yes, sir," they chorused in badly timed unison.

"Ah." It struck him that this answer was less than helpful since everyone in the hall was there for him in one way or another. "So, you're the new bandagers who are supposed to be following the doctor around this morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Keep your eyes open and your mouths shut, and you might learn something. I'll try and make time for questions afterward."

There were about twenty patients already lined up on the three benches. Half a dozen still stood in the line at the orderlies' table by the main entrance, waiting to be processed. Each man already seated had been assigned to a bench depending on the apparent urgency of his case. Several of the men on the nearest bench were slumped forward with their heads in their hands. A couple were clutching at injuries with bloodstained rags-one eye, one foot-and one was shivering and coughing.

"Not so busy this morning," observed Ruso, eyeing the empty seats.

"Word gets around, sir," said one of the trainees.

Ruso turned and raised his eyebrows. The other two shrank back as if they were hoping to melt into the wall.

"I mean, sir," the lad stumbled, "only the men who are really ill bother coming."

Ruso was conscious of the patients' eyes on him as he led his little troop across the hall and into his surgery.

Ruso's working space contained three shelves, a collection of unmatched stools and chairs, an examination table by the window, and a desk whose migratory tendencies had been curbed by a previous incumbent with a hammer and several large nails. One wall held a scatter of faded notices and a collection of colored diagrams showing muscles and bones. The students looked uncertain whether to stand to attention or demonstrate their keenness by trying to memorize the diagrams.

"Stand where you can see," he instructed them, laying his case on the desk and unfastening the clasps, "and don't get in my light." As they shuffled awkwardly around the stools, he lifted the lid of the case and repositioned the bronze probe, which always slipped out of its place as soon as the case was vertical. He glanced up at them. "Ready?"

The nods were a little too eager.

The feverish man was summoned, swiftly examined, and sent down to an isolation ward with a prescription. The moment the man had been escorted out of the room, there was another knock on the door. Instead of the next patient, it turned out to be the porter who was part owner of the invisible dog.

"Could I just have a quick word, sir?"

"Can't it wait, Decimus?"

"Very quick, sir."

"Go ahead."

"Sir, I thought you might like to know, Officer Priscus was seen arriving at the street of the Weavers this morning. He's back at his lodgings, sir."

Ruso stared at him. "That's it?"

The man glanced at the students. "We wondered if you wanted anything shifted, sir. Being as he might be here any minute."

Ruso frowned. "Why would I want anything shifted?"

"We're cleaning up a bit, sir. So if you've got anything cluttering up any of the rooms, we could move it for you. Sir. If you tell us where to put it."

Ruso scratched his ear. "If Officer Priscus finds anything cluttering up any of the rooms, you can tell him I put it there."

"Yes, sir." The man hesitated.

"Well?"

"Sir, we think Officer Priscus might ask who helped you put it there in the first place. If there was anything. And then some people who were just trying to be helpful might be in hot water, sir."

Ruso glanced at his students to make sure they were at least pretending not to listen. "I'll deal with it in a moment," he said. "Send in the next man."

Next in was the optio with the bloodstained rag clutched to one eye. Ruso looked at his students and grinned. This would take their minds off any speculation about things cluttering rooms. This, he knew, was the patient they had all been dreading.