Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

These were the very qualities which Fabius had prized in him until just now. Ruso could not think of another man who would have covered up for his centurion the way that Daminius had, and he had no doubt that Fabius had taken the credit for most of the work his optio did. It occurred to him that the affair with the kitchen maid might have been the only thing that kept Daminius sane. “What will you do with the girl?”

“She’ll go back to the dealer.” They both stepped across a broad puddle. “I can’t have a deceitful little trollop like that in the house. I have a wife back in Deva to consider.”

Ruso supposed Fabius would buy himself a new maid to chase.

“I need to write to the dealer straightaway. I may need you as a witness.”

“To say she’s not satisfactory?” This would hardly get Fabius a better price. It would certainly wreck the girl’s chances of being bought by a good family. “Why not just sell her locally?”

“I want my money back. She’s still within the six-month guarantee period.”

“Ah.” If the lovestruck Daminius had thought about buying the girl for himself, he would have to beat the original price.

“I’ll have her confined to the kitchen until we get back to Deva. Although why the cook didn’t tell me there was something going on, I don’t know.” He answered his own question with “I suppose she was sleeping with him too. The only place who might pay decent money for her here is the brothel, and it’s too much bother selling to them since the law changed.”

Considering the fate of slaves in brothels, Ruso took the view that the more bother involved in consigning them there, the better.

“Anyway,” Fabius continued, “with all this to deal with, it’s just as well my headache has cleared. Doctor Valens was right: I should be staying out in the fresh air during the hours of daylight.”

“He’s a good doctor.”

“You need to get up-to-date with the latest treatments, Ruso. The Greeks don’t know everything. You should read about what Doctor Spiculus and his people are doing in Alexandria.”

“Really?”

“I’ve asked Doctor Valens to find me a copy.”

“I’d like to see it.” Ruso had never heard of a Doctor Spiculus in Alexandria, but he could recall a bartender of that name not fifty paces from where Valens used to live in Londinium.

“Anyway, I’ve told the tribune that the doctor and I can keep everything going here between us while you search for the boy. A huge quantity of routine work goes into keeping a century running smoothly, you know. People don’t appreciate it.”

“It’s the same with hospitals.”

“But you don’t have quotas and targets in hospitals,” Fabius pointed out. “Obviously it’s a pity about the boy, but Second Augusta are already on the march back to Isca. My old comrades in the Sixth expect to finish tomorrow and head south the day after, whereas our men have a turret and another hundred feet of wall to complete before we can all go home. I’ve explained that we’ve had a landslide and trouble with the natives and I’ve practically lost my optio, but it makes no difference. Everyone still expects the stone to arrive on-site as if nothing had happened. Even if they send us more men-which they won’t-Daminius says we’ll need at least a week.”

Daminius says. Daminius was not suspended from duty any more than was the kitchen maid, because Fabius could not manage without them.

“Leave that alone!” The young woman let go of the handle in the top grinding stone, grabbed the toddler, and lifted him away. Over his howls of outrage, she shouted, “Do you want to get your fingers mashed?”

The toddler wailed louder. Still squatting, she held him at arm’s length, turning toward the unkempt man who had just let Tilla and Enica into the yard. “What’s that boy of yours done now?”

“I don’t know!” The man glanced around and yelled, “Aedic? Aedic! Get here now!” There was no response. “Where is he?”

“How should I know?” The woman ignored the toddler’s frenzied struggles to free himself from her grasp. “He’s your son!”

Tilla glanced at Enica, who was looking exhausted. The harassed mother thrust the toddler toward the man. “You take this one. I’ll see to them.”

“I’m busy.”

“Oh, and I have nothing to do?”

The woman won. The man tucked the toddler under his arm as if he were a stray and very unruly lamb, and the sound of protest was muffled by the walls as they went indoors.

The woman scrambled to her feet, slapping away the pale drifts of flour on her skirts. A couple of older women came out of the better-kept house across the yard. They recognized Enica, and Tilla heard yet again the conversation that had been repeated at every home they had visited. The sympathy. The hope of good news. The promise of prayers and offerings. And behind it all, unspoken, the fear that Enica’s bad luck might rub off on them.

Duty done, the women retreated and stood with their arms folded, as if they were waiting to say, I told you so, about something.

Enica said, “We must speak with Aedic, Petta. We think he can help.”

But Petta did not know where Aedic was. “He wanders off,” she said. “I tell him not to, but he never listens to me and his father does nothing about it.”

“When did you last see him?”

The woman scratched the back of her neck. “He brought in the firewood,” she said, trying to remember. Then she appealed to her neighbors. “Did anybody see where Aedic went?”

One of them said, “Sometimes he runs errands for the soldiers.”

Enica gave a gasp of concern as Tilla asked, “Do you know which ones?”

Nobody did. As if to excuse herself, Petta added, “I have enough to do without worrying about a boy who never does what I tell him.”

Tilla wondered whether, if this Aedic had been kidnapped, anyone here would notice. “Has there been anyone here asking for him?”

There had not. Without much hope, she said, “Did he ever talk about seeing something at the wall one day?”

The question reminded one of the neighbors of something. “My son says Aedic sometimes hangs around near the old farm.” Seeing Tilla did not understand, she said, “Where he was brought up.”

“Our farm?” demanded the husband, who had reappeared in the doorway. The toddler, damp hair still stuck to his forehead, was cramming bread into his mouth. The man turned to his wife. “Nobody told me.”

Petta said, “Did you ever ask?”

“What does he go there for? There’s nothing left.” He turned to Tilla. “They took our land for building on,” he said, “turned us off good grazing, burned down the houses and-”

“Oh, stop!” Petta cried. “Nobody cares about your land. A boy has been stolen, and your son knows something about it.”

Tilla raised her voice to step in before the argument grew worse. “When you find Aedic, Branan’s family need to talk to him straightaway. We need to know what he saw at the wall.”

The father said, “I’ll tell him.”

“It is not safe to send him on his own,” Tilla told him, afraid he might be thinking of doing just that. “Do you know where to bring him?”

“We know,” growled the father, perhaps annoyed at being told what to do.

They were on the way out when Tilla said, “Do you know where their old farm was?”

Enica, busy dragging her horse’s head round so it would carry her back to the road, did not seem to hear. Tilla said, “You need to go home. I will take you back now and find some salve for your tired muscles. Then I will take Dismal and go and look for Aedic.”

Enica was too weary to argue. Tilla took hold of the piebald’s reins and led it beside her own horse, hoping the other searchers had been more successful and feeling guilty for dragging this poor woman about on horseback for hours, finding nothing, and making her suffering even worse than before. Now she was plagued with a new fear. What if Aedic had disappeared too?