'Yes. Thank you, Albanus.'
'Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to-'
There was a rap on the door. Albanus opened it and a familiar voice said, 'Didn't you get my message, Ruso?'
'Ah,' said Ruso. 'Priscus. There you are.'
Glaring at Albanus, Priscus added, 'I specifically stressed that this was most urgent.'
'I was just sending him to find you,' said Ruso, noting inwardly that his ability-and readiness-to tell lies had improved dramatically since he had come to Britannia. He dismissed Albanus, then motioned the administrator to a stool, while he himself remained seated on the corner of his desk, reversing their usual positions. 'How can I help?'
'I haven't come here to ask for help, Ruso. I have come here to tell you how I am going to help you out of a very awkward situation.'
Ruso, wondering which of his many awkward situations Priscus had found out about, raised his eyebrows and waited.
'Your missing servant,' Priscus continued, unaware of the relief these words offered to his listener. 'I take it she hasn't been found?'
'Not yet.'
'Very well. I have had notices drawn up. They are being distributed as we speak.'
Ruso found himself scratching his ear again. 'Notices?'
'Missing slave notices. The usual sort of thing. I'm surprised you haven't done it yourself.'
'I was hoping she would turn up,' said Ruso, feeling he probably should have.
'Frankly, Ruso, I was also surprised not to be notified of her loss. As custodian of the Aesculapian fund.'
Ruso looked him in the eye. 'The loan will be paid in full,' he insisted. 'On the due date.'
Priscus inclined his hair in his usual careful manner, and said, 'Of course.'
Ruso remembered that hair sticking out in a wild clump during his visit to Priscus's house, which it seemed the administrator was going to pretend had never happened. 'So, from your point of view,' he continued, forcing himself to concentrate, 'the girl is irrelevant.'
'Nevertheless, as a responsible custodian-'
'Priscus, the auditors can't hold you responsible for my slave running off.'
The hand that smoothed the hair trembled slightly, and for the first time Ruso wondered if the man was genuinely frightened of the imperial auditors. 'Nevertheless,' Priscus was repeating, 'as a responsible custodian I should be seen to be taking precautionary measures.'
'Very thorough of you,' said Ruso, wondering if the administrator stuck his nose this far into everyone's affairs, or whether he was particularly unlucky Surely this couldn't still be revenge for the linen closet? Standing up to terminate the interview, he said, 'I seem to be in your debt, Priscus. Let's hope your notices will do the trick, eh?'
65
A nother night passed, and still there was no sign of Tilla's return. During a brief lull in morning surgery Albanus ventured to ask whether his officer was feeling all right.
'Perfectly well, thank you,' replied Ruso crisply. 'Is there a problem?'
'No, sir,' said his clerk, too tactful to point out what Ruso already knew: that several times he had asked patients the same question twice. Sometimes it was because he had forgotten the answer. At other times it was because he had not only failed to register the answer, but had forgotten that he had already asked the question.
By the end of surgery and ward rounds he had seen forty-two patients and had made at least three final and utterly contradictory decisions about where Tilla had gone and what he should do about it.
Midday saw him leave the fort by the west gate, for no other reason than that he had not been that way recently. He had no real hope of catching sight of Tilla. She was either long gone or hiding or
… he recalled this morning's vow not to speculate about worse fates. Whatever had happened to her, he was going to find her. He strode down to the docks.
The elegant houses stared out through a thin drizzle at a view that held none of the charm it had offered on the morning that the Sirius had brought his belongings. The tide had sunk away to reveal a weed-strewn and smelly expanse of mud flats. The farthest legs of the jetty reached out into the river channel, where a couple of bulbous merchant ships were moored. The sound of hammering came from one of them, and a figure jolting one arm a heartbeat before each of the blows was dangling on a rope slung from the bows. A couple of figures sat on the jetty, swinging their feet in the air and their fishing lines into the water. Closer to shore, a man and a group of barefoot boys were plodding slowly across the mud, heads down, searching for whatever they were collecting in their buckets. A sail mender was plying his trade, sheltered from the drizzle by one of his own creations stretched over a wooden frame. Ruso felt bizarrely disappointed, as if he had expected Tilla to be sitting down at the dockside like a parcel, waiting to be collected.
As he turned to make his way back up the hill, he scanned the many offerings scrawled on the wall of the warehouse on the corner. Amongst the advertisements for lodgings, hot food, the visiting slave trader, and BEAUTIFUL GIRLS AND BOYS! DANCING FOR YOU! he read in the much clearer script of a clerk who was used to posting official notices,
RUNAWAY SLAVE ATTRACTIVE FEMALE, AGE ABOUT 2 0. FAIR CURLY HAIR. SLIM. 5 FEET 4 INCHES TALL. RIGHT ARM INJURED, MAY BE BANDAGED. MISSING SINCE 3RD BEFORE KALENDS OF OCT. REWARD FOR RETURN OR INFORMATION LEADING TO CAPTURE: CONTACT G. POMPEIUS PRISCUS, ADMINISTRATOR, AESC. THANKSGIVING FUND, LEG XX HOSPITAL.
He scowled. The notice read as if Priscus owned her himself. Not even a mention of his own name. The man's presumption passed all bounds of decency. The notice was skillfully worded, though. The words attractive female would blind the eyes of many a potential searcher to the fact that the amount of the reward was not specified- which was just as well. He supposed he, as the owner, would end up having to pay it. He wouldn't put it past Priscus to send him a bill for the sign age as well.
He paused on the way up the hill to ask a fearsomely painted female lolling on a bench outside a whorehouse whether she had seen a woman answering Tilla's description. He had barely got half a sentence out when her owner appeared in the doorway behind her and assured him that yes, they had a girl just like that. If the gentleman would just step inside she would be very pleased to meet him.
'I don't want a girl like her,' explained Ruso, 'I want the girl herself.'
'She'll be whoever you want her to be,' promised the owner, leaning closer and leering, 'new to the business but keen as mustard-and fresh as a daisy.'
A hideous thought crossed Ruso's mind in the wake of this unlikely description. 'Let me have a look at her.'
The man's smile widened as he beckoned him forward. 'Right this way, sir. Satisfaction guaranteed.'
'I'm not coming in,' explained Ruso. 'You've just told me you've got a new girl who answers the description of my missing slave.' The man's smile dropped away. 'I want you to send her out here.'
The man frowned. Ruso heard a creak and a sigh as the painted female got up from the bench. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and a husky voice said, 'Want me to get rid of him, boss?'
The man nodded in her direction and introduced her. 'Elegantina,' he said. 'Champion lady wrestler in three provinces. Recently retired.'
Ruso twisted around and nodded a greeting to a face held uncomfortably close to his own. 'Ruso,' he said. The woman was as tall as he was, and probably heavier. He turned back to her owner. 'I heard Merula's got raided the other day,' he said.
'They didn't find nothing,' pointed out the owner.
'No, but they're obviously in the mood to look.'
'All my staff are registered.'
