Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

If a prophecy was needed, the victim’s entrails would be examined for omens. Finally, his body would be offered to the earth: firmly staked down in the wettest patch of ground the gift givers could find. Ideally, where water met land in a bog that never went dry. After a summer like this, there would be no shortage of gift-giving places.

She crept around the outside of the building, testing each step as she picked her way over a jumble of loose stone. The building was ramshackle-she had seen that in daylight-but she could not find any gaps large enough to peer through.

She thought again about running for help. Conn was too bright to leave witnesses alive. Once she was inside, she was a prisoner too, and who would show Albanus’s rescue party where to go? Then she had what she hoped was a better idea.

She took a series of short, shallow breaths and thumped on the door with both fists. “Run!” she gasped. “The soldiers are coming!”

The dog, excited, started to bark.

A voice shouted, “Who is that?”

“Darlughdacha, wife of the doctor! I have seen men from the fort! Get out before they catch you!”

A sliver of orange light appeared, widening as the door was dragged open across the dirt floor. The crowded gloom of the hut smelled of fresh bread, old animal droppings, and fear. People parted to let her approach the fire.

“You must get away!” she cried, glancing from face to face and trying to make each person think she was talking especially to them. On one side stood men she guessed were Conn’s friends. On the other, familiar faces from the farm. “I have seen them on the road! They will be here at any moment!”

There was a murmur of anxiety, people looking to each other, to Conn, to the old man.

Senecio was in his chair, and Conn had moved forward to take charge. Now he nodded to one of the men, who got up and left. Enica glanced up from where she was crouched over the bread on the griddle. She did not meet Tilla’s gaze. Tilla noticed that the dog had followed her into the warmth.

She saw Daminius and Mallius now, lying on the far side of the fire. Their arms were tied. Their eyes looked blank. She supposed they were drugged. She stepped up to Conn. “While your man goes to look, the soldiers are getting closer!”

He pushed her aside and turned to address the men. “Take no notice!” he ordered. “This woman is a liar like her mother before her. She says whatever suits her at the time. She is trying to stop the offering.”

Tilla said, “If you kill these men, even if you escape, the army will hunt you and your families down and crucify you all.”

“She told me my brother was with a slave trader!” Conn too was trying to convince the onlookers. “She said he would be brought back soon. It was a lie. She is working for the Romans.”

“I was told-”

“How will any of us get Branan back from the far mountains? We have no peace with those tribes and the soldiers dare not go up there.”

She said, “My husband has gone after him.”

Nobody looked impressed. Daminius was looking around as if he were trying to make sense of what was happening. A streak of dribble glistened at the side of his mouth. Either he was drooling or he had spat something out.

“I was taken to the far mountains,” Tilla reminded them. “I came back.”

“You were not nine winters old,” Conn pointed out, and there was a murmur of agreement.

She needed to keep him talking. She could do nothing more. Soon they would know for certain that she had lied about the soldiers. Albanus could not possibly have hobbled as far as the fort yet. She said, “You will not get Branan back if you are all sent to die in the arena for murdering two of the emperor’s men.”

“So the soldiers are not at the door, then?” Conn smirked at his audience. “She thinks we are as stupid as the people she works for.” He ordered the men to wake the prisoners up. “We will take the officer first,” he said. “The child stealer can watch and see what awaits him.”

People craned to see what was happening on the far side of the fire. Some of the men began to kick and slap the prisoners to rouse them, and she saw Cata’s sister trying to force Daminius’s mouth open while somebody tipped up a jug and water splattered over his face. Someone struck up a chant of “ Wake them up! Wake them up! ”

All this time Senecio had not spoken. She shouted over the chant, “You cannot let this happen!”

He shook his head, and when she leaned closer he told her, “I am an old man, Daughter of Lugh. I do not have much longer. This offering is the only thing I can do for my son. If the gods are pleased, they will show us where he can be found.”

So it would be the entrails, then. Or he might prefer to read death throes. There were many ways of interpreting the threefold death.

Daminius was squirming and gasping for breath. She heard Mallius cry out in pain.

From somewhere deep in her memory came her husband’s voice telling someone that he could never reason with Tilla because reason was a blunt weapon in the face of belief.

“Is this why my mam left you?” she shouted. “Because she would not be a part of things like this? You said, ‘No more killing’!”

The chant faltered, as if people had dropped out to listen.

“A life for a life!” Senecio’s cry cut through the last of the voices. “I will have my son back!”

That was when she said it. The thing she had not even been aware of thinking. “Will you not listen to your own daughter?”

It had been a guess. A tiny suspicion that had taken root. He did not deny it. He did not even seem surprised. All he said was “This is not the time, child.”

And that was how she knew it was true. On this strange and terrible night, her Samain prayer had been answered.

“This is the only time!” she urged. “There will be no other time after this. The gods will turn their backs on you when they see you murder this man Daminius who was sent to help you. Conn will have to kill me too, because I will not keep silent. Then my husband and his men will hunt you all down.”

“If it will bring my son back,” Senecio said, “I will do this thing. And you, child-you must decide whether you are with your father and your brothers, or with your Roman husband.”

“For what? Is this what you want Branan to come home to? Burned houses and memories and ghosts?” She knelt beside his chair. “Am I worth less to you because I was not raised in your home? Or because I am a woman? Will you lose your only daughter too?”

“Enough!” Conn roared, seizing Tilla by the arm and dragging her away from Senecio’s chair. “You talk too much.”

“I am trying to help!”

Conn shoved her so hard she stumbled and fell. He told Enica to get the bread ready and his men to strip the victims.

“You call yourselves heroes and warriors?” Tilla shouted from the shadows by the hut wall, seeing a dark stain of urine spreading on the front of Mallius’s tunic as they cut his bonds ready to drag off his clothes. “You cowards torment two helpless men while a real warrior has gone to rescue Branan! Why are you not riding to join him? Why-”

But nobody was listening to her, because the door had crashed open and a voice was yelling in British with a Roman accent, “Nobody is to move!”

Too late, Ruso realized he had just scooped up somebody else’s son in an enormous hug. He was not given to displays of affection; the closest physical contact he usually had with children was when his nieces and nephews leapt on him uninvited. And now here he was, with a boy helpless in his arms. How long should one hold on before letting go? Branan was surprisingly heavy and beginning to slide out of his grasp. Ruso lowered him to the floor, aware that various parts of himself that had stopped hurting were now starting again. He patted the boy on the shoulder, cleared his throat, and said, “I’m glad you’re safe.”