They seemed ludicrously baggy compared to riding breeches. 'Are they supposed to be like this?'
'If you just fasten your belt around the top, sir…'
'I look like a bloody native.'
'A lot of gentlemen lace their boots up around the legs and pop in a bit of sheepskin, sir. You'll find them very comfortable in the cold weather. Much warmer than leather.'
Ruso rubbed his growth of beard and looked down at his toes. His ankles were hidden under the rust-colored wool that was already beginning to irritate his skin in unaccustomed places. He felt ridiculous dressed like this, but Valens had recommended this man and Valens, he had to admit, usually looked surprisingly well turned out for one so disorganized. Presumably when the cold set in, the two of them would look no more outlandish than anyone else.
He glanced out of the doorway in the vague hope of seeing someone dressed like himself. Instead, he saw a young woman walking past, carrying a faded blue military cloak draped over a loaded shopping basket. A young woman with curly fair hair, a bandaged arm, and bare feet. A young woman for whom he had only this morning asked the cobbler to set aside a pair of second-hand boots, and who needed to try them on. She was heading out of town and he guessed she was on the way to the laundry.
'I'll take them,' announced Ruso.
'I can show you some other fabrics,' offered the weaver, with the sudden anxiety of a man who suspects he could have sold something more expensive.
'They're fine. You can send me the bill care of the hospital.' Payday was in less than a week, which was why Ruso now felt it was safe to buy a few small necessities.
'If you'd just like to slip them off-'
'I'll wear them,' declared Ruso, pausing only to scribble his signature on the bill before snatching up his belt and hurrying out of the shop.
When he reached the street Tilla was already too far ahead for him to attract her attention without bellowing down the street like a drill sergeant. Acutely aware of the trousers flapping around his ankles with every step, Ruso decided to catch up with her when she stopped at the laundry, which was the only possible place where she could have any business out here. He passed the clanging din of a metalworker's shop where a display of pots and pans swinging in the breeze sounded a chaotic chorus over the steady rhythm of the hammer. Beyond it were a few tumbledown houses, which might have been pleasantly positioned on the edge of town were it not for the stench that was already hinting at the nearness of his destination. He stepped aside for an ancient veteran shuffling along on two sticks, then looked up and realized she must have crossed over to walk in the sunshine. She was hidden by a heavy cart rumbling past in the middle of the street.
The owner of the laundry was taking advantage of the sunshine too. The yard was crisscrossed with loaded washing lines. Navigating by smell, he ducked to avoid being slapped in the face by a sheet and turned left to make the customary contribution in the Vespasianus. Gazing down into the yellow depths, he reflected that the greatest of men could be brought low by one simple act of stupidity. The general who had conquered much of Britannia, stifled a Jewish revolt, and risen to the rank of emperor was chiefly remembered for his attempt to put a tax on public pisspots. His musings were interrupted by a more practical thought: He had not checked for any exit arrangements in the trousers. Perhaps he had better practice in private first. Turning on his heel, he ducked back around the flapping sheets and into the steamy atmosphere of the laundry to meet his slave.
The counter clerk shook his head and managed to look even more vacant than he had before Ruso spoke to him.
'She must be here somewhere,' Ruso insisted. 'I just saw her. Fair hair. Broken arm.'
The youth scratched his head and then examined his fingernails, as if the information were hiding somewhere under his hair and he might have dislodged it.
'She's collecting my laundry,' prompted Ruso, glancing around. The only other people he could see were laundry workers: a couple of well-muscled women wringing out towels and child slaves trampling the urine vats.
The clerk had picked up a ledger. 'Name?'
Ruso told him. 'Or it might be under hers. Tilla. Or Doctor. It's not the laundry I'm after, it's the girl.'
The clerk ran a finger down the ledger, paused, squinted, and walked across to check the labels dangling from the necks of linen sacks lined up on the rack behind him. Then he went back along the rack and read them all again. Finally he returned to the ledger and said, 'Medicus. Are you the doctor who-'
'No. You're quite sure you haven't seen her?'
'It's still wet. Only came in yesterday. You have to give us-' But Ruso was already out the door.
Back on the street, he spotted her immediately. Although she had been expressly forbidden to wander, Tilla had passed the laundry and kept walking. She was now a distant figure, moving briskly along the side of the road in the manner of a woman who knew exactly where she was going and was anxious to get there.
Ruso was conscious of the fact that there were plenty of things he should be doing this morning, most of which began with a shave and a haircut and none of which included trotting along the Eboracum road in a pair of ridiculous trousers, following a disobedient slave. Common sense dictated that he should shout to call her back now. Curiosity tempted him to continue just a little farther and find out where she was going.
She was approaching the cemetery. He was catching up with her. He wondered whether he had time to duck behind one of the grander gravestones and slip off the trousers. He had settled on a six-foot monument when the sound of wailing alerted him to a group of mourners approaching beyond a clump of trees, close enough to be offended.
Tilla was clearly in a hurry. She hardly bothered to step aside for a couple of cavalrymen trotting past: one of the horses, obedient to instinct rather than its rider, shied to avoid her at the last minute. The rider twisted in the saddle and appeared to shout something at her back. She took no notice. She bustled past a row of carts trundling into town under a weight of timber, and mercifully had the sense to cross to the opposite shoulder while a military road gang downed their picks to watch her pass. A voice bellowed at them to get back to work. Ruso was relieved. It meant they were too busy to gawk at his clothing.
Even if he had managed to put them on properly, it was entirely the wrong weather for trousers. He was beginning to understand why people said the climate here was as unpredictable as the natives. Yesterday the rain had been torrential. Today, sunlight flashed on the metal heads of the picks as the road gang swung back into action. The feathery seed heads of the grasses on the road's shoulder waved gently in a light breeze. His encumbered legs carried him along behind Tilla, feeling hotter with each movement.
He tried to imagine what his servant could be doing out here. Several possibilities came to mind, none of them reassuring. Despite the fate of Saufeia and now apparently Asellina, she could have taken it into her head to run away. But in that case surely she would have spent his grocery money on shoes. Whereas she seemed to be carrying a full shopping basket-which was puzzling in itself. If she was intending to return, why shop first and haul it all the way out of town? Unless, of course, she had used his money to stock up for her journey.
On the other hand, she could be on a repeat expedition to gather whatever she had found yesterday to put in that stinking medicine. In which case he would be faced with the uncomfortable task of punishing her.
He tried to remember what he had seen out here on the training run.
Beyond the stubbled fields where a couple of plough teams were now plodding muddily along behind their oxen lay an area where the road and its wide shoulder had been cut through thick woods. Beyond the woods he could remember very little. Pasture? Scrub? He knew there was a native settlement about four miles from the fort, because they had passed the milestone just before the broken ankle incident. Could she be intending to carry the shopping all the way out there?
A worse possibility occurred to him: that she was on the way to some sort of rendezvous. Surely she would have more sense than that? But Tilla seemed to have more faith in her goddess than in any of the practical steps he had suggested to keep herself safe, and any number of unsavory characters could have crawled into her confidence while she was at Merula's. If there really was a madman, he could have come back for a second-or was it a third? — victim, this time choosing an isolated spot away from the danger of witnesses. Well, whoever he was, he would be getting a surprise visit from the medical service.
She was still about fifty paces ahead, showing no sign that she realized she was being followed. This, he told himself, is ridiculous. If he had never downed that cup of fake Falernian, if he had never decided to interfere at the fountain, if he had kept his mouth shut and let events take their course, he would not now be wasting his morning
