Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

By the end of the morning more names had been flattened back into the wax and others had been added. Three had lines drawn underneath them as well, to show they were boys of about Branan’s age. Two of them were brothers, so it made sense to visit them first.

According to Enica, the family of Lucano and Matto had lost their farm when the line for the wall was laid out. The army had moved them all to an abandoned homestead on poor land farther north. They were on the way there now, easing their way down a steep shortcut across a rocky stream. Tilla, riding in front, urged her horse to jump the tumbling water and scramble up the opposite bank between the trees. Dismal’s horse followed her own, leaping up the steep slope.

At the top, where the shortcut met the lane, she circled back to wait for Enica and more directions.

The piebald horse reached the stream. Enica let go of the saddle one hand at a time, leaning forward and grabbing two fistfuls of mane. The horse’s head jerked up as it leapt, narrowly missing her nose. It bounded up through the trees with Enica’s head down alongside its neck. She clung onto the mane while her body bounced farther and farther to one side. She was almost out of the saddle by the time she reached the top.

Tilla seized one flapping rein and drew the horse up beside her own. “Are you all right?”

Enica grasped one of the front pillars of the saddle and heaved herself back up. “I am sorry.”

“How long is it since you last rode?”

“I think I was ten winters old. And then only a few times.”

Tilla, who had grown up riding her father’s horses, stared at her. “Why did you not say this?”

“You did not ask. Anyway, I thought, it is only sitting.” She tried to shift positions and winced. “Just at this terrible angle, and being shaken about . . . And wearing my stepson’s trousers.”

“We will stop and eat,” Tilla declared. “You can rest.”

Enica shook her head. “If I get down now, I will never get back up. Turn left here. It is no more than a mile. I want to talk to those boys.”

“Run all day, this one will, sir,” said the man, whacking the nose of the only remaining animal in the stable as it attempted to bite him. “He’s a good horse.”

Ruso watched as the leggy bay was led out into the yard. Its ears were flattened back against its head and the whites of its eyes were showing.

“I’ll be honest, sir, I wouldn’t have gave him to your wife, but you won’t have no bother with him. Not once you’re up. You’re further from his teeth back there.”

It was this horse or no horse, and at least when he turned it east toward Vindolanda and urged it forward, it sprang into a willing canter. He wondered whether Tilla and Enica had managed to track down the source of the rumors. He would never have spoken it out loud, but he hoped they were wasting their time. He didn’t want there to be a body in the wall. He didn’t want to have to worry about whether it was Candidus, and besides, Branan had been missing for two nights now. A boy who had been kidnapped in order to be silenced was not likely to be found alive after that long. And they very much needed to find Branan alive. Not only because he was innocent and friendly and nine years old, and because his family-well, his father-had tried to make strangers welcome, but because Pertinax was right: If they didn’t, the fragile peace with the locals would break down again. Everything our lads fought for will be thrown away. And Senecio, who wanted no more killing, would see his people swept up into fury and bloodshed once more.

He had done his best to keep the peace by sharing information with Conn. The Britons were following up the sightings however they thought best, with the promise that if help was needed, they were to ask. The army was investigating the whereabouts of every single man on the afternoon that Branan had disappeared.

What he had not told Conn was that he was going to Vindolanda to find out what information Security had on Conn himself. Ruso still had a nagging suspicion that the elder brother might have set this whole thing in motion. Clearly the irony of the army turning itself inside out on behalf of a native family was not lost on him. “We’ll help you round up all your men and beat them,” Conn had suggested, with a bitterness that belied any suggestion of humor. “You always think it works on us.”

Vindolanda’s well-worn main street was busy, as usual, and Ruso had to steer the horse between groups of pedestrians who would have moved out of the way a lot faster if they had considered the size of its teeth. The wooden fort at the end of the street was currently housing three times the number of men it was built for, and the cavalrymen queuing outside the stables glared at him before parting to let this unknown officer forward to hand over his horse. When he was finally inside the inconspicuous corner of the HQ building occupied by Security, Ruso showed the permit Accius had signed.

The clerk squinted at it, turned it upside down, held it level to examine it for something or other, and finally agreed to let him pass.

The security officer placed a stack of five or six writing tablets on the desk and kept hold of them. “Give me the name again.”

“Conn,” Ruso said. “Son of Senecio.”

“Interesting. I think we had a question about Senecio the other day.”

Ruso, whose enquiries about Senecio had been strictly unofficial, said nothing.

The tablets were parceled up with twine. The officer pulled the strand to one side and bent his head to reveal thinning hair combed across a bald patch. “Conn, son of Senecio, resident on a farm with three buildings seven hundred and fifty paces southwest of the fort known as Parva.”

“That’s him.”

The officer picked at the knot in the twine. Finally he opened the top document and read, giving the occasional “Hm” as he reached an interesting point. Ruso said, “I don’t want to waste your time. I can look for myself and let you know when I’ve finished.”

The man shook his head and said, “If only it were that easy.”

Ruso refrained from pointing out that it would be that easy if he handed them over.

“Facts are not intelligence, Doctor. Intelligence is what we sift from the random facts that accumulate in our reports.”

Ruso waited. Finally he was rewarded with “ ‘Conn. Served as a leader in the troubles. Younger brother Dubnus killed in a skirmish with a unit from the Twentieth.’ ”

There was not time to dwell on the news that the men who had killed Senecio’s second son were from his own legion.

“ ‘Father still alive, mother dead, father remarried, one half brother, Branan.’ ”

“Branan is the one who’s missing,” said Ruso, hoping to speed things up.

“No wife or children listed. ‘Other occupants of the farm . . .’ ” He paused, “There are cross-references. Do you want me to look them up?”

“Stay with Conn for now.”

“ ‘Thought to retain contact with remaining rebels . . . mostly social . . . Suspicious activities much curtailed since executions of ringleaders after the troubles . . . No associates currently known in other tribes . . .’ Some trouble with one of our men over a woman now married to another cross-reference . . . ‘Tendency to speak before he thinks . . .’ ” Ruso could vouch for that.

“Ah. There’s a new female associate called . . . holy gods, these people’s names . . . Dar-”

“Darlughdacha?”

“Could be.”

“It means Daughter of the God Lugh. Also known as Tilla.”

The man’s eyes widened. “ ‘Married to an officer of whom he doesn’t approve.’ ”

“That’s me.”

The security officer glanced at the permit again and looked up. “Are you sure you’re supposed to have access to this?”