Ruth Downie - Tabula Rasa

Branan retreated to a safe distance and peered at Ruso’s battered face in the lamplight with unashamed curiosity. Then the boy said, “Are you not going to thank me for rescuing you?”

Ruso sat down on the bed, hoping the room would stop dancing around him. “Did you?”

“I shouted at them not to hurt you,” Branan explained. “I kept on shouting, ‘Help me, I’ve been stolen!’ and the horrible man with the furs round his neck said he would slit my tongue if I didn’t shut up. And then a lady said, ‘Are you the missing boy?’ and I said, ‘I’m Branan,’ so she started telling everybody who I was. And then most of them stopped hitting you.”

“Then I thank you very much,” he said, trying to focus on the boy’s face and remind himself that his jaw was not broken: It was only toothache. “Very much indeed.”

Branan bowed his head graciously. At that moment an orderly poked his head around the door and asked if he could come in. He turned out to be the advance guard for a squad of hospital staff who all wanted to see the famous Branan. “Everybody knows about you,” they told him. A couple of them pressed small gifts into his hand. One was a honey cake.

The boy grinned, showing the gap in his teeth. Ruso thought he had never seen such a fine sight.

“Shall we go home now?”

“I’ll see to it,” Ruso promised.

Ruso was aware that he was behaving just like his most annoying patients: the sort who had no time for doctors, always wanted to do too much too soon, and refused to listen to advice. At last, he felt, Pertinax had a reason to be proud of him. The man himself could not have done a better job of complaining about his confinement. Finally the local doctor agreed to let him leave on the first carriage that would take him tomorrow morning, but only after Ruso had promised that nobody here would be blamed if he dropped dead on the road. “The only other problem is,” Ruso confessed, “I’ve got no money.”

“We’ll club together,” the medic assured him. “It’ll be worth it to get rid of you.”

Ruso attempted a smile and wished he hadn’t. He suspected it came out as more of a lopsided leer. Then, remembering, he said, “I left a lame horse at the inn.”

“They’ll sort it out. It’s a decent place. They would have helped you get the boy back if you’d asked.”

“I didn’t know who to trust.”

“No?” The medic grinned. “Welcome to the border, soldier.”

There was a collective gasp and a shuffle of confusion as people fell over each other in their haste to get away from the door. Tilla heard the word “Traitor!” breathed in her ear.

“Nobody move!” yelled the soldier again. “Give us our men!”

Tilla heard the swish of swords being drawn, and Conn’s command of “No weapons!”

Her opinion of him rose. In a confined space like this, weapons were useless. They might hold the soldiers at bay, but he would know that none of his people could escape even if they broke the walls down. The soldiers were not fools. They would have the place surrounded. The doorway was wide enough only to show a couple of iron helmets in silhouette, but there were torches blazing outside in other hands. The dim-witted lookout and the man sent after the soldiers must have been captured.

“Give us our men! Now!”

Daminius and Mallius were staggering to their feet, Mallius pulling down the tunic Conn’s people had tried to tear off him.

Tilla did not recognize the voice of the soldier. She had no idea what he knew or how they had found this place so soon. But she knew that if she did not think of something quickly, then everything she had feared would come to pass. Mallius would tell them he had been lured into a trap and leave out the reason why. Daminius would be punished for his part in it, Senecio’s family would be executed, and her husband would be disgraced by the shame of a treacherous wife.

Daminius was wiping his mouth and straightening his damp clothing. Pushing a couple of Conn’s men aside, she moved into the firelight and took him by the arm. “Let me help you, sir,” she suggested. “The Samain beer was stronger than you thought. My brother should have warned you.”

Mallius stumbled across to the doorway, flailing his arms about like a drowning man trying to reach land. He was crying out about prisoners and ghosts and murder and cannibals.

“Too much beer,” said Tilla for the soldiers’ benefit. “He can hardly speak.”

She spoke to Conn in British. She dared not say anything secret: Some of the legionaries were Britons and would understand. “I told you not to let them drink so much, brother,” she said. “Now look. One of them has wet himself and they are both are in trouble with their officers, and it is all your fault.”

To Daminius she said, “I am sorry, sir. I should not have invited you. I did not know your friends would be worried about you.”

“Shouldn’t have accepted,” Daminius told her, his voice slurred. “Big mistake. Big, big-”

“Out!” came the order from the door.

“Yes, sir,” Daminius agreed, but instead of stepping forward he tottered sideways and put his arm around Conn’s neck. “Can you tell’im from me,” he said to Tilla, “we mus’ do this again sometime. I’ll ‘range the same sort of thing f’r’im at my place.” Then he lifted up the little phallus from around his neck and kissed it before shambling toward his rescuers with the words, “Sorry, sir. Bit of a night out. Lovely people.”

First the shriek. Then: “Oh, my boy! My precious, precious boy!”

Tilla slapped down the bowl of cream that was halfway to butter and leapt up from the bench.

Enica was crouching in the gateway, rocking a small figure in her arms. Senecio was lurching toward them, the tip of his stick clacking and sliding on the cobbles.

“I saved the doctor, Mam!” Branan cried from the safety of his mother’s embrace. “I saved him and I’m famous and they gave me presents!”

“My son!” Senecio threw his stick aside. Together he and Enica engulfed the boy.

“Did you miss me?” came a muffled voice from within the huddle. “Is the dog here?”

Tilla closed her eyes. She had thought she would dance with joy when-if-the good news came. Instead she found she was trembling. She was relieved. But oh, so very tired. All the lost sleep drifted toward her and bade her welcome, and she had to force her eyes open so as not to topple over.

There were other figures in the yard now. Shouts of delight. Weeping. Children leaping about and two of them spinning each other round in dizzying circles. The dog barking and jumping up at the growing family group and finally being dragged into it by a small arm.

Beyond them she saw a man who seemed to be moving with extreme care, as if his limbs might detach themselves at any moment. She recognized the figure and the hair, but neither the gait nor the face was right. He paused to watch the ecstatic crowd in the gateway. Then he turned and started back the way he had come.

“Husband!” she cried, edging round the family and lifting her skirts to step over the wagging tail of the dog. “Husband! It is me!”

Ruso wanted to walk back to the fort, but Tilla persuaded him to stop at Ria’s, where she and Albanus helped him up to the loft bedroom. Albanus gallantly retreated, murmuring that the doctor did not need to hear any bad news at the moment, and left her to tend his injuries and administer poppy tears to ease the pain. Virana was keen to assist, but crying, “Oh, don’t hurt him!” every time the patient winced was not the kind of help Tilla needed. Instead Virana was sent to the fort to let Centurion Fabius know that the boy was safe and that if they wanted the Medicus, they would have to send a vehicle and some of the hospital staff to fetch him. When the girl had gone, Tilla tried to tell her husband the new story of her life: that Senecio was her real father. It was thrilling and frightening at the same time, as if the ground of her past had shifted underneath her. He mumbled vaguely, “That’s nice,” and drifted off to sleep. She tried not to feel disappointed.