Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

For once Fabius looked genuinely ill. His breath smelled of wine and vomit. “Doctor.”

Ruso said, “You know what’s happening.”

“No.”

“Is that no, you don’t know, or no, you’ve been told to stay out of it, or no, you’re too drunk to know anything?”

“There’s no need to be rude. I’m not feeling well.”

“What did you say to the tribune about Daminius?”

“Nothing.”

“You didn’t attempt to defend your own man?”

Fabius winced. “Don’t shout, Ruso. My head is aching.”

Ruso restrained an urge to punch him and lowered his voice. “How are you hoping to get better, Fabius, knowing they’re out there interrogating him?”

“We need to find the boy.”

“He’s your man. He’s loyal, he’s hardworking, and the men like him. I like him.”

“That’s not the point.” Fabius might have been drinking, but he was sober enough to argue cogently.

“Do you have any idea of how much you owe that man?”

Fabius raised a forefinger. “That, Doctor, is why I am not involved. Nor you.”

Ruso dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re not involved because this is illegal, and you know it.”

“You think I’m callous, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“I’m not callous. Do you know why I’m not lying in bed? Because until they tell me it’s over, I shall be standing in there”-he wheeled round and pointed back toward the corridor-“in there, in front of the shrine, asking the gods to make Daminius tell the truth.”

Ruso turned and lifted the door latch. He had no idea how to deal with a man whose response to the torture of his deputy was to drink wine and stand around praying. Fabius even seemed to think that staying out of bed was heroic.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m his doctor. I should be there.”

“To do what?”

“Oh, don’t waste my time!” Ruso strode away without looking back, but the question still echoed around his mind. To do what?

“I don’t bloody know,” he muttered, not sure whether he was more angry with Fabius for being weak, or Accius for sanctioning torture, or Daminius for telling stupid lies, or Tilla for getting him involved in all this in the first place. As for that unspeakable brute who had lured the boy away . . .

That was the problem. None of them knew who he was, so none of them knew where to place their anger. Instead they were fighting with each other.

Daminius had been strung up by his wrists with his toes barely touching the ground. The glow of the fire in the gloomy workshop lit up his naked flesh and shaded his eyes into deep hollows. The gag had been taken off and his lips were moving, but no sound came out. The little winged phallus hung uselessly around his neck. Perhaps he was reciting a prayer. Ruso remembered that face grinning at him through the muck of the quarry. That’s the spirit, sir.

Nobody seemed to notice Ruso. He moved closer and felt a waft of warmth from the furnace. So far Daminius appeared to be unhurt. The questioner was taking his time setting up: allowing his victim’s fear to build. That was how they worked.

Daminius tensed as the questioner approached. The man stood there for a while looking him up and down. Breathing steadily. Like a purchaser assessing livestock. Finally he said, “Where is the boy?”

Daminius looked him in the eye. “I don’t know.” He spoke louder, struggling to turn and face the onlookers. “I don’t know! I’ll swear on anything you want. You need to look for someone else. You’re wasting time.”

The questioner moved around to pump the bellows. Daminius’s eyes glittered in the flames. “Where were you on the afternoon before yesterday?”

“Just say where you were!” urged Ruso, not sure whether he wanted this to stop for the optio’s sake or for his own.

Accius spun round. “What are you doing here?”

Ruso, who did not know himself, said nothing.

“This isn’t some sort of party, Ruso.”

Ruso realized Fabius had thrown on a cloak and followed him. He was looking just past Daminius, using the old trick of concentrating his attention just beyond the thing he did not want to have to see. His face was haggard.

Inside the workshop, the questioner had paused, waiting to know whether to proceed in the presence of witnesses. When all was quiet and no order had come to stop, he repeated, “Where were you on the afternoon of the day before yesterday?”

“I went for a run, sir.”

The questioner looked at Accius, who nodded. He reached for a pale rag and began to wrap it around his right hand.

“Tell him!” Ruso begged.

“I’m surprised at you, Ruso,” said Accius. “I wouldn’t have thought a surgeon would be squeamish.” He glanced at the guards. “If the doctor interferes again, take him back to his quarters.”

Ruso swallowed. There were four guards, the questioner, and a tribune. All determined to go through with this. All doing it to find the boy and to keep the peace with the Britons. Fabius was doing nothing to stop them, and perhaps he was right. The usual objections to torture-that people would say anything at all to make it stop, and that it was impossible to tell whether the victim was hiding the truth or didn’t know it-did not apply. Everyone knew Daminius had lied. All he had to do was to explain exactly where he had been when someone dressed as a legionary lured Branan away.

The questioner moved across to the furnace and lifted out some implement that had been propped in the flames. The tip glowed white, golden, and then red as he turned back to Daminius. The optio twisted to try and avoid it, but with no foothold he swung helplessly back.

Ruso held his breath.

The red-hot tip had just made contact with the skin when the scream came. Not from Daminius, who grimaced and gasped as the stink of his burning flesh hit Ruso’s senses. The screaming came from beyond the yard, and it was getting louder as the footsteps approached.

“Stop! Please, masters, officers, I beg you, stop! He knows nothing about the boy! Daminius, tell them!”

Accius gave an order. The iron was withdrawn.

Daminius twisted himself around, struggling to look at the girl. It was Fabius’s kitchen maid. She was trying to reach him and being held back by two guards.

At the sight of her, Fabius seemed to recover his speech. “What are you doing here?”

Daminius said, “I don’t know what this woman is talking about, sirs.”

“Tell them!”

Daminius still said nothing. Accius glared down at the girl. “Well?”

The girl stopped trying to free herself from the guards. She looked round at the group of men and at the naked figure strung up in the light of the burning coals. “He was with me.”

“Absolute waste of time,” complained Fabius, and for once Ruso agreed with him. The smithy and the wheelwright’s shop were now back in action. Daminius had been sent back to laboring duties in the quarry, where Fabius was probably hoping another landslide would bury him. Meanwhile Fabius had asked Ruso to accompany him on a healthy walk around the perimeter track.

“I shan’t cause any disruption to the work here,” Fabius continued, “but once we’re back in Deva, I shall get rid of him.”

Having defied a tribune and trespassed on someone else’s human property, Ruso was surprised that Daminius had not already been suspended from his duties. On the other hand, the tribune had sanctioned illegal treatment in front of witnesses. Daminius’s future was going to be interesting.

Unabashed by Ruso’s silence, Fabius carried on. “I can see it all now, looking back. Always finding excuses to come to the house. Volunteering for things. Asking to take on more responsibilities. I should have guessed.”