Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

“Lovely girl,” Valens observed as the crockery was placed on the table. “Just served me the most marvelous spiced pork. I had no idea you lived so well over here.”

“We manage,” Ruso told him, wishing he had arrived earlier.

“Any news about the boy?”

“None.”

“Your centurion’s offered me a very decent room. Come and see.”

The reason Valens wanted to show him a very plain bedroom with a damp stain under the window and a dead wasp on the sill only became clear when they were alone. Valens heaved one of his bags of luggage off the bed and indicated a trunk for Ruso to sit on. “I saw the father out there. I’d say his mind’s going.”

“He’s desperate.”

“If somebody took one of my boys . . .”

“He’s too lame to go out searching,” Ruso explained. “He’s exercising the last freedom left to him: the freedom to be bloody awkward. Have someone keep an eye on him overnight, will you?”

Valens nodded. “You need to make sure somebody knows about the patients I saw just now. One’s a Ninth Batavian with a broken nose and bruising. He’s gone back to his quarters.”

Ruso waited to be told why anyone should care about a Ninth Batavian’s nose.

“He was taking a shortcut to join up with the Epiacum road and got stopped by a bunch of natives who wanted to search his vehicle in case he had the missing boy in there.”

“Why didn’t he just let them?”

“Some of the load was his own. He thought they were thieves.”

Ruso sighed.

“I’ve also admitted a blow to the left temple who started vomiting. That was a Briton-on-Briton fight. Somebody looked at somebody’s wife the wrong way over a water fountain.”

“They’re fighting each other?”

“Different tribes,” Valens explained. “Three locals against a lad from somewhere in the south who’s serving with the Legion. From what I can gather, the Southerners hold the view that the tribes here are like herds of wild animals.”

“I believe so.”

“The locals accused him of being soft and collaborating with child stealers. I’m told the locals are going around armed with sticks, allegedly for beating down vegetation while they search for the boy they think we’ve stolen.”

Ruso shook his head. How had things got so out of control so quickly? It was like the landslide: The underlying situation must have been far more unstable than anyone suspected.

“Oh, and your centurion wanted to tell me about his palpitations.”

Ruso looked at him blankly. Palpitations were one of the few symptoms he could not recall Fabius ever mentioning.

“He also said that you don’t listen and just tell him there’s nothing wrong with him.”

“What’s wrong with him,” Ruso explained, “is that he reads medical books.”

“I thought so.”

“So what did you tell him?”

“I gave him an examination that left no possibility unexplored.”

“I’m sure that pleased him.”

“Then I told him he was a fascinating case and in the circumstances he’s lucky to be alive at all.”

Ruso said, “Considering the amount of medicinal wine he’s drunk, that’s true.”

“He thinks I’m marvelous.”

“You won’t feel so marvelous when he drops in for a diagnosis in the middle of the night. Why do you think I refused to share this place with him?”

“Ah, but he won’t. I’ve told him that the latest thinking is completely different to anything he’s heard before. His only hope is to build himself up with lots of fresh air and exercise during daylight and rest in his bed throughout the hours of darkness. For a man like him, indoor air during the day is poison.”

“What did he say?”

“He did look a bit stunned,” Valens confessed. “But he said he was very grateful and he wished he’d consulted me before.”

“If that fails, try putting him in a room with your father-in-law. That should buck him up.”

Valens grimaced at the mention of Pertinax. “I’ll go and see him in a minute,” he promised. “Incidentally, in between symptoms, Fabius told me how difficult it was to find out where all his men were yesterday now that some chap called Daminius has been confined to working in the quarry.”

“He’s Fabius’s optio,” Ruso explained, “and he’s confined for his own protection, in case the natives get hold of him. He’s a useful man. That’s how Fabius has got away with doing next to nothing for so long.”

“The optio’s fallen out with the natives?”

Ruso explained about the search party and the list of alibis.

“It must be this Daminius. You’ve discounted everybody else.”

Ruso scratched one ear with his forefinger. “If I were intending to commit a crime, I’d make sure I could prove I wasn’t there at the time.”

“Perhaps he did it on the spur of the moment.”

“Perhaps it isn’t him. And perhaps he genuinely didn’t stop to talk to anyone.”

“So if it’s not him, who is it?”

“If I knew that,” said Ruso, getting to his feet and feeling a sudden pang of hunger, “I wouldn’t be here. In fact, I shouldn’t be here anyway.” He paused in the doorway. “It’s good of you to come over. I appreciate it.”

Valens grinned. “Just occasionally, I like to confound the wife’s low opinion of me. Meanwhile, if there’s anything else I can do, just say.”

The loss of the boy seemed to have brought out a sudden generosity in Valens. Perhaps the impending arrival of his wife had helped. It occurred to Ruso that he might as well benefit from this magnanimous mood while it lasted. “Our pharmacist’s running short on figs for cough mixture,” he said. “And I haven’t had any dinner. Do you think you could charm something out of the kitchen?”

Aedic had eaten everything Petta had offered him for supper and the hunger had almost gone away for a while. Now she wanted the unbrother in bed and out from under her feet. For once, Aedic carried him behind the partition without arguing. He took the unbrother’s boots off and slid below the blankets with him. Petta wanted to know why Aedic didn’t do it like that every night. See? There was no need make a fuss about it, was there? Aedic, who was not the one making a fuss, took no notice. He cuddled the wriggly unbrother in the darkness, even though everything was mostly the unbrother’s fault for making too much noise and getting on Matto’s nerves and scaring away the fish so there was a fight.

In the end the wriggling stopped and the soft breathing told him the unbrother was asleep.

Aedic did not sleep. Instead he curled up tight and poked his fingers into his ears, trying to shut out the sound of the unbrother snuffling and the adults talking about the boy who had been kidnapped. But it was hard to keep his fingers rammed far enough into his ears all the time, and when the sounds drifted back he could hear his aunts still going on about how terrible it was. Who would do such a thing? And he thought, I know who would do it. I said he would come and get Branan, and he did. I made it happen.

It was not really the fault of the unbrother. Aedic himself was the one who had told them Branan’s name, even though he knew Matto would never keep it quiet. When the man found out that Branan knew nothing after all, he would cut Branan’s throat and bury him in the wall too, and then start hunting for the one who really had seen what happened.

Aedic.

He pulled up the blankets where the unbrother had thrown them off, and put a hand on one warm chubby leg. The unbrother was all right when he was asleep. Sometimes even when he was awake. When he laughed, it made you want to laugh too. He was all right when Aedic threw him up in the air and he shouted, “Again! Do it again!”