Medicus

'Yes, but where?'

The boy stared at him. 'Where she always works, sir. At Merula's.'

It was Ruso's turn to stare.

'You know her, sir,' said the boy 'They call her Chloe.'

68

Earlier that same morning, two young women in local dress were walking away from the huddle of native houses that Ruso had visited two days before. They were making their way down the track that led to the main Eboracum road. The taller of them was carrying a small sack over her shoulder.

Her companion turned to glance at her. 'It's not too late. You could stay.'

'And repay kindness with trouble?'

'No one knows you're here.'

'Sabrann, sooner or later someone will talk. Now the worst they can say is that I came, and I went.'

They walked on in silence for a few steps, then the smaller girl frowned. 'Stop a moment.' She reached up and tugged at her companion's hood. There had not been enough plant dye-or time-to disguise the whole of the hair. Brown wisps curled around the temples, but beneath the hood was a long blond plait. 'You must remember to keep this forward,' she warned. 'I can't pin it any tighter. I don't know how you're going to manage tomorrow'

The taller girl shrugged. 'Someone will be sent to help.'

'You'll have to keep moving. It's a good fifteen miles and the state of the tracks will slow you down.'

They reached the edge of the road. The only traveler they could see was leading an oxcart back in the direction of the fort.

'Do you have all you need?'

The hooded girl lowered the sack to the ground. 'Bread, a comb, a blanket. Everything I asked for, and your mother gave me cheese and bacon.'

Sabrann put a hand on her shoulder. 'May the goddess walk beside you.'

'And keep you ever in her gaze.'

Their embrace was awkward, the hooded girl careful to keep her right arm concealed beneath her inconspicuous gray cloak. 'I must go,' she said, fingering her acorn necklace before raising the sack to her shoulder. 'While the road is empty.'

'Don't forget!' Sabrann waved an arm in an easterly direction, raising it to indicate distance. 'Beyond the bridge, after the oak tree, take the track to the left. You must be careful not to stay on the road any longer than you have to.'

The hooded girl stepped onto the gravel surface. When she turned, Sabrann was already on her way back to the houses. She was alone on the road once more.

Three days earlier, the walk to this place from Deva had tired her more than she had expected. She had been relieved to be offered water and, after the briefest of introductions, summoned to the big house to be inspected by the grandmother, who was head of the family

Led over to face a chair near the fire, she had knelt in the bracken that covered the floor. As her eyes adjusted to the familiar gloom of a house with no windows, she found herself being peered at by a wizened old woman with sparse white hair pulled back behind large ears.

'Darlughdacha,' said the old woman, repeating the name that had been shouted into one of her ears by her interpreter, the girl Sabrann. The grandmother shared the girl's strangled accent and her speech was distorted by the absence of teeth to trim the ends of the syllables, but the name was clear enough. 'Daughter of Lugh,' continued the grandmother. 'Why have you come to us? Do we know you?'

'I spoke with a woman who was born near here, grandmother!' shouted the young woman who had been Tilla for a few weeks, and before that had been nobody for so long that being addressed by her own name now made her feel that someone else must be kneeling beside her. 'Her name is Brica! She told me I could find people of honor here!' It was difficult to shout without sounding angry.

'It's no good,' said Sabrann. 'I have to shout everything right into her ear.'

The old woman, realizing that she was missing something, turned to Sabrann, then squinted at her and frowned. 'Where is your hair, girl?'

Sabrann grinned. 'I pinned it up!' she shouted, twisting to show the back of her head and miming a stabbing action with her fingers, then turning back to shout, 'Hairpins!'

The grandmother shook her head in disbelief. 'This will all come to an end when you have a husband and some proper work to do!' She aimed a forefinger at Tilla. 'What did she say?'

Sabrann leaned close to the old woman again and shouted, 'She has heard that we are people of honor!'

'Yes,' snapped the old woman, 'but who says so?'

Sabrann hesitated before shouting, 'Brica, grandmother!'

'Aha!' The woman smacked one blue-veined hand onto the blanket that was tucked around her knees. 'So, my brother's family remember what honor is!' The chin rose and the creased lips clamped together.

After a pause they opened again. 'I hear Brica's man is losing his sight,' she declared. 'The gods are just.'

Behind her back, Sabrann gave Tilla a look that was somewhere between weariness and apology. Tilla prayed silently to the goddess that she would not be turned away because of someone else's quarrel. She had nowhere else to go.

Sabrann bent down again. 'She asks hospitality for nine nights!' she shouted. 'Until her arm is healed! Then she will leave!'

'Why does she not go to my brother's family?'

'Because she seeks people of honor!' yelled Sabrann, clearly embarrassed at her grandmother's rudeness. 'She does not want to stay with friends of the Romans!'

The grandmother plucked at the edge of the blanket, tugging it higher up on her lap, then returned her attention to the figure kneeling in front of her. 'Tell me, daughter of Lugh,' she said, 'who are your family?'

Relieved, Tilla who was now Darlughdacha again had begun the business of naming her tribe, then her parents and her grandparents and her great-grandparents while the old woman frowned and put in occasional questions about brothers and cousins and who was married to whom and who had fought beside which warriors and eventually they found the connection they were both seeking: an obscure second cousin who had once sold cows to the old woman's late husband's brother. 'Now we know who you are,' declared the woman, nodding with satisfaction. 'You are welcome to stay with us while your arm heals, Daughter of Lugh, child of the Brigantes. You may sleep with this one who stabs herself with hairpins.'

Tilla inclined her head. 'It is an honor, grandmother.'

'She says it's an honor!' yelled Sabrann.

Extra bracken had been hauled from the drying racks and thrown down to make a bed on the floor of the small house where the unmarried girls slept. On that first night, comfortably fed, stretched out on a borrowed blanket, covered by the medicus's cloak-she would have to get rid of that, a problem she would think about later- Tilla had lain listening to strangers chattering in her own tongue. She rolled over to watch the glow of the firelight. A hound had wandered in earlier and settled close to the warmth. One of its ears twitched and it gave a sudden shudder as it dreamed. It occurred to her that there must be mice, and to her surprise it also occurred to her that she did not care. She took a deep breath, savoring the familiar smells of wool and wood smoke and muddy dog. As she thought, 'I am happy,' she was aware of a voice nearby in the darkness suggesting, 'Perhaps she is sleeping.'

'Are you sleeping, daughter of Lugh?' demanded a second voice.

'Shh, Sabrann!' urged a third girl. 'Don't wake her!'

She closed her eyes and said nothing. She did not want to answer questions about where she had come from. She did not want to think about where she was going, or what she might find when she finally reached home. She wanted to lie here, in this bed, and remind herself over and over again: I am free.

The questions had followed soon enough, though, as had the expressions of sympathy when they found out