Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

“Perhaps I misheard, sir.”

“I think it’s more likely Nisus was telling him to shut up in words that he couldn’t fail to understand. When’s he due back from leave? I can’t remember how long I signed for.”

Gallus cast a glance at Pandora’s cupboard. “I could ask someone to look for it, sir.”

Ruso shook his head. “Don’t bother. He’ll be back before they-”

He broke off as the door opened. Valens strolled in, nodded to Gallus, and seated himself on the table of the absent pharmacist before announcing, “Prefect Pertinax is feeling very much better this morning.”

“He is?” Ruso asked.

“Oh, yes. He managed quite a long string of invective before he told me to get out.”

Gallus, stifling a grin, retreated.

Ruso said, “How long until Serena gets here?”

“Anytime from tomorrow.” Valens sighed. “You really know how to cheer a man up, Ruso.”

“I practice on my patients.” Ruso gestured toward the crate under the desk. “Supplies have just thrown out all our orders. How am I supposed to run a hospital when I end up chasing around for blankets and buckets?”

“Surely it can’t be that difficult?”

“You’d be amazed. We order basic items from the stores two hours away and they take a week to turn up. If they get here at all.”

“Well, it’s no good complaining to me,” said Valens. “I’m on your side. I don’t have the faintest idea how these things work. But good luck sorting it out.”

“I need a clerk.”

“That reminds me,” said Valens. “I had a chat with your man’s centurion. That chap called Silvanus.”

“The one who wrote and told me Candidus was here.”

“Yes. Before he would say anything else, he wanted to know if Candidus was dead.”

Ruso looked up in alarm. “Why would he think that?”

“Because if he is, he was a bright, friendly lad and a sad loss.”

“Ah,” said Ruso, guessing what was coming.

“Otherwise he’s lazy, he talks too much, he’s fond of gambling, and he thinks he’s a comedian. Probably why the lads at Magnis called him Perky.”

“I see.” Ruso pulled open his purse and tipped the contents into his palm. Half a dozen small coins, a boot stud, a scattering of fluff, and two identical dice with the numbers carved as concentric rings in the bone.

“Silvanus said he couldn’t see why he would desert. As he put it, it’s not as if you were asking the lad to do any work. All he had to do was park his arse behind a desk all day.”

Ruso rolled the dice across the worn surface of Candidus’s desk. He rolled them a second time. Then he picked them up, examined each of them, and rolled them one by one before handing them to Valens. “You try.”

The legs of the table creaked as Valens shifted sideways to make space. The dice rattled across the ink-stained wood several times. Finally he selected one and tipped it back and forth in his palm. “This one’s weighted,” he said. “Six nearly every time.”

Ruso said, “He could have made enemies.”

“Silvanus says he was in debt to couple of people. Nothing major, but they didn’t expect to see their money back.”

“Anyone who owed money to him?”

“Nobody who would admit to it.”

Which was not the same thing at all. “Thanks anyway. You’d better get back to Magnis.”

“I’ll keep my ears open. Oh, and I’d steer clear of Pertinax for a while. He’s not impressed with having visits from three doctors in one morning. Especially when none of them will give him any crutches. And now somebody’s told him there’s a dead body in the emperor’s wall.”

“Oh, gods above. Who told him that?”

“I’ve no idea. You’ve heard it too?”

Ruso shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he said. The tale had reached a patient who had not left his bed for days. If this was sabotage, it was even more effective than its perpetrator could have hoped.

“You don’t think it might belong to your clerk?”

“I don’t think it exists,” said Ruso. He had once been in trouble for failing to obey Accius’s orders back in Eboracum and he was not going to make the same mistake again. Especially after the fiasco of the search. “I’m going to write to Albanus today and tell him his nephew’s deserted.”

“I thought you’d decided his disappearance was highly suspicious and he ought to be here collecting hens?”

“He probably acted on impulse,” said Ruso. “He’d already managed to seriously annoy people here, including me.”

Valens looked disappointed. “I was hoping this might turn into one of your escapades. Finding a body and going around accusing people of murdering it.”

“I haven’t found a body. Nobody has.”

Valens scrutinized him for a moment. “Pity,” he said. “You’ve been so much more entertaining since you met Tilla and adopted the native tendency to overdramatize.”

“I’m not the one who’s overdramatizing,” Ruso pointed out. “You are. Candidus is absent without leave. I’d imagine he’s either lazing in the baths at Coria, or he’s bought himself a trip south on an empty supply vehicle.”

“If you say so. I won’t tell Albanus it might have been you who drove him to it.”

“It wasn’t! Would you run away because I shouted at you?”

Valens slid down from the table. “Ah, but I would know you didn’t mean it.”

The chilly eastern breeze that had blown the rain away was now plucking at the tents and flapping the bedraggled standards. The queue had curled itself around the back of the medical tent in search of shelter.

As soon as Ruso arrived, a bandy-legged man stepped out of the line and pushed to the front amidst much complaining. His reply of “I’m not sick!” did nothing to pacify his competitors.

Ruso addressed the rest of the queue. “I’ll just have a quick word with . . . ?”

“Lucius, sir.”

“With Lucius here. I can see he’s keen to get back to work.” As the queue avenged itself with jeers and some questioning of whether Lucius knew what work was, he led the man under the shelter of the examination area.

“Two things to tell you, sir. I was supposed to be sharing cook duty with Perky the other night, only he never turned up at the tent and nobody’s seen him since.”

“Didn’t anyone question it?”

“Only me, sir. There’s always people coming and going. But nobody can remember seeing him after that, and I heard they’ve found a body in the wall.”

“Take no notice,” Ruso assured him. “It’s nonsense. I’m only chasing Candidus as a favor because his uncle’s a friend of mine. If you see him, tell him to report to me before he gets himself into real trouble. What was the other thing?”

“A mate of mine called Olennius wants to hand something in to you, sir. He’s on stone-laying duties up at the wall. Shall I tell him to come and find you tonight?”

“No,” said Ruso. “I’ll go and see him when I’ve finished here.”

What had been a chilly breeze down in the camp was an icy blast on the crest of the hill. The Legion would not be able to work up here for much longer-not because of the discomfort to the men, which was irrelevant, but because if the wet mortar was not washed out of the joints by the winter rains, then the frost would creep into it and destroy it. Damp, freshly quarried stone would flake. Standing water would freeze, and they would have to find extra wood for fires to melt it before the lime could be mixed. Then there would be the snow. Mud made the transport of materials difficult; snow would make it impossible.

Already vanity had been sacrificed to comfort. Woolen caps were pulled down over ears. Layered tunics and leggings of all colors had taken on matching hues of earth and pale lime. The centurion who was currently shouting at someone to get a move on looked as though he had just waded through a bog.