Medicus

arm?' as a prelude to his usual inspection of the hand and check of the bandaging, he sat on the end of the bed.

'So. Tell me why you haven't eaten your dinner.'

As he scrutinized her, he had the uncomfortable sensation that she was doing the same to him. He wondered how long she had been a slave. There must have been a time when she-or her owner-had been rich enough to afford jewelry for the pierced ears. Just as someone in Saufeia's past had thought she was worth the trouble of teaching her to read. He supposed the fortunes of slaves rose and fell, just like those of their owners. But unless he could find some way of communicating with this one, he would never find out how she had slid low enough to be dragged about by Claudius Innocens.

'I know you can speak,' he insisted, although if he had not heard her shout out in the poppy-induced dreams, he would have begun to wonder.

No response.

'Are you always this quiet?'

No response.

'Well, silent one,' he said, 'my dining room is full of horsemen and my bedroom is full of dogs. So a little peace is a welcome change.'

He took out his own writing tablet and opened it. The space under 'Treatments for Eye Injuries' seemed even emptier than before. He sniffed. He glanced across at the girl. 'How long is it since you had a trip to the baths? In fact, have you ever bathed?'

Moments later Ruso nudged the sign aside with his foot and opened the door of the hospital bathhouse with the hand that wasn't supporting the girl. Inside, he lowered her onto a bench and went back out to find a light. On the way back in he repositioned the sign against the foot of the wall: CLOSED.

The changing room was still warm although the fires would have been banked up for the night some time ago. Ruso began to light the lamps. The girl was watching him, clutching her arm, breathing the air that was thick with damp and sweat and perfumed oil. She was taking in the blue-painted walls, the niches and hooks for clothes, the white piles of discarded towels. He considered collecting the towels himself, then realized how inappropriate that would look. The master tidying for the slave.

'Wait there.' His voice echoed around the room as he made the gesture that Valens made when telling the dog to 'sit.'

He lit only one lamp in the cold room: just enough to see by to walk through it. Ladies did not need a cold plunge. Claudia had always been very firm about that. Presumably slave girls could do without too.

The atmosphere in the warm room made his tunic stick to his skin. He tripped on a discarded wooden shoe and almost turned his ankle. The lamp he was carrying swayed and spat as the oil spilled out onto the floor. He sent the shoe clattering across the tiles toward the hot room door, where the rising light revealed an empty rack looming over a jumble of discarded footwear. Another used towel dangled over the side of the massage couch. A strigil, edge glistening with the last oily scrapings of dirt, skin, and hair, lay on the rim of the tub. Ruso, who never used these baths and had never thought to inspect them, was willing to bet they didn't leave this sort of mess when the chief administrator was around. Evidently they weren't expecting him back before morning.

He wiped the strigil on the towel, then dropped the towel to mop up the spilled lamp oil. The light caught an end-of-the-day rainbow sheen dappling the surface in the tub, but at least the water was still warm. He sniffed the contents of a couple of bottles that had been left on the shelf. Spice. Lavender. The girl could take her pick.

The coals in the brazier of the hot room were almost out. The room smelled of overheated men. He had barely stepped inside when something landed on his head. He flinched and shot up a hand to brush it away, then realized, shook his head, and smiled. This was not Africa. There were so few biting and stinging creatures here that the hospital didn't even have its own poisons expert. What he had felt was only condensation dripping from the ceiling.

Ruso abandoned the hot room, guessing the girl would not linger in there.

When he went back he found she had edged along the bench and was huddled in the corner. She looked bewildered. It struck Ruso that since she had been unconscious when he carried her in, this was the first time she had seen anywhere outside Room Twelve.

He turned to find her a clean towel, only to find himself facing an empty shelf. He did the sit gesture again and stepped out into the corridor just as an orderly was passing with a tray of water jugs.

'Where's the clean linen kept?'

'Third door on the left, sir.' The orderly disappeared into a side corridor.

Ruso flipped the latch and collided with the door, which had failed to open as expected. He rattled it to no avail, then realized there was a keyhole. When the orderly reappeared with an empty tray he said.

'Where's the key?'

'Officer Priscus will have it, sir.'

'He took the key to the linen closet?'

'Officer Priscus is in charge of all the keys, sir.'

'That's ridiculous!'

The orderly was too wise to comment. Ruso was wondering what to do next when he heard a familiar voice.

Evidently Valens's social evening had been interrupted. He found him arguing about racing teams with a grizzled veteran whose leg was swathed in bandages from the hip down. Ruso said, 'How do we get hold of clean linen when the administrative officer's not here?'

Valens glanced up. 'He usually leaves enough out to last till he gets back. There'll probably be some up from the laundry in the morning.'

'Surely he can't just disappear like this?'

'Excuse me a minute,' murmured Valens, and left the man's bedside.

As they approached the door, Ruso heard a dog bark somewhere inside the hospital building. 'Did you hear that?'

'What?'

Ruso wondered if he was starting to imagine things. 'Never mind.'

'Priscus has a system,' explained Valens. 'Jupiter knows what it is, but nobody likes to interfere because as long he's left alone, everything turns up more or less when you need it.'

'I need it now. Why the hell isn't he here anyway?'

'Apparently he went to Viroconium to negotiate a contract for delivery of hospital blankets.'

'Blankets? Gods above, surely any peasant with a couple of sheep and a wife can knock up a few blankets?'

'Ah,' agreed Valens, 'you and I might think so. But they have to be the right specification to fit hospital beds.'

'Does anyone really believe that?' said Ruso.

Valens shrugged. 'You'll have to pinch what you want from someone else.'

Back in the corridor, Ruso contemplated the silent door of the linen closet. He had yet to meet Officer Priscus, but already he hated him. The man seemed to have turned hospital administration into an art form- something incomprehensible, overpriced, and useless. In the meantime, a sick girl was huddled in a corner of the changing room, facing a pile of wet towels.

Ruso stood back, contemplated the latch for a moment, and moved. A splintering crash echoed down the deserted corridor. He helped himself before anyone could arrive to see who had just bypassed the hospital administration with a military boot.

'Towels!' he announced, presenting them to her with a flourish.

She seemed less impressed than he had hoped. He took her good arm and helped her up. As he opened the cold room door she tried to pull away. He tightened his grip. 'You need to bathe,' he insisted, walking her through into the warm room. He thought again how thin she was as he lifted her onto the edge of the massage couch. As he approached with the cleaned strigil and the two bottles of oil, her eyes widened. She raised herself up with her good arm and tried to sidle away down the couch.

Ruso did the 'sit' gesture again. 'Stay still.' He walked around to the other side of the couch, leaned across, and began to untie the sling that was knotted behind her slim neck. He felt her shoulders tighten and remembered