Medicus

'No,' said Chloe, 'that's not what I'm saying.'

'It was staged!' said Ruso suddenly. 'They couldn't get rid of her here without everyone knowing so they forged an official letter telling her someone would meet her outside.'

Chloe gave a weak smile. 'Does it take you this long to diagnose all your patients?'

'Without the letter or any witnesses to the murder, nobody can prove anything.'

'Of course,' Chloe agreed. 'Saufeia was stupid, but they aren't. The letter probably held instructions for her to burn it.'

'Which she did because she thought she was keeping it secret.' Ruso paused. 'This is only a theory. It could be wrong.'

'It isn't,' said Chloe. 'Listen. They've always let me out because they knew I'd come back for Lucco. But after Asellina went one or two girls started to get ideas, so they tightened up. I'm the only one who gets past them now. All that stuff about escorting girls for their own safety? It's rubbish. It's so nobody makes a run for it. Every slave here is in chains, Doctor. They just aren't the sort you can see. Saufeia wouldn't have got out of here unless they wanted her to.'

'The doormen let her out, followed her, and then killed her.'

Chloe shrugged. 'I don't know. If they didn't, they know who did. It doesn't much matter, does it? Nobody knows who her family was or what her real name was, and it won't bring her-' She broke off to look up as the door opened. 'Lucco!' she shrieked, leaping to her feet and pulling the boy into her arms. 'Oh, Lucco, my baby!'

Stichus, standing in the doorway, caught Ruso's eye and grinned. 'Bet you thought I'd run off with the cash,' he said.

'It never crossed my-' Ruso's lie was stifled by an enthusiastic kiss from Chloe, who then flung herself at Stichus in a similar fashion before seizing her son again and ordering him to say thank you.

'It was nothing,' said Ruso, finding his mouth stuck in a foolish grin and relieved that at last he seemed to have gotten something right. He was heading for the door when Stichus said, 'Stay a minute, Doc, all right? I got something to say and I want a proper witness.' He stepped in and closed the door.

Chloe glanced at him, puzzled.

'I should have said this a long time ago,' announced Stichus. He placed a hand on Lucco's head. 'I don't know what your mother's told you but I know she knows. And she's never said nothing to me but I know she knows I know too.'

Lucco, Ruso felt, was making a good job of trying to look impressed without having the faintest idea what his rescuer was talking about.

Stichus cleared his throat. 'This here young man,' he said, addressing Chloe and Ruso, 'is my legal property as of today. But I don't think of him that way. You and I both know' (here he glanced at Chloe, who was looking apprehensive) 'that this here young man is my own flesh and blood.'

Lucco's eyes widened. He turned to his mother. 'Am I?'

Chloe reached up and tweaked Stichus's fading red hair, then grinned at Lucco. 'You never guessed?'

Lucco scratched his head, giving his father-who now seemed not to know what to do-a hint to remove the hand.

'That all right with you, then?' Stichus asked him.

'I knew there was something,' said Lucco. 'You were always nicer to me than the others were.'

Ruso, not needed here and due at the hospital, tried to slip around Stichus toward the door. Stichus's hand landed on the latch before he got there. 'Right,' he announced, 'busy night ahead, got to get back to work. You coming, son?'

After they were gone Chloe took Ruso's hand. 'I'm grateful, Doctor. I know you won't let me show you how much, but I'll see he pays you back in the morning.'

'It was nothing,' Ruso repeated. 'I have to go now, there are patients…'

'If Tilla was here I'd ask her to put a blessing on you.'

'If Tilla were here I wouldn't have had the money,' he observed.'The gods move in strange ways.'

'They do,' agreed Chloe. 'Who would have guessed that for all these years old Stichus has been thinking my boy was his son?'

Ruso paused with his hand on the door latch. 'Isn't he?'

Chloe grinned. 'He is now,' she said.

70

Tilla was singing quietly to herself. The sack of provisions swung and bumped against the small of her back with each step. Its weight was a pleasure. It meant independence. There was no one out here to give her orders or ask where she was going.

She was not entirely sure where she was going herself. After two years she had little idea whether anything was left of her home. Whatever she found, though, would be better than the place she had left: a place built by foreign warriors who fought not for honor but for money and hid their shame by bullying everyone else. In the end even the medicus had turned out to be little better than his companions. She had begun to think he could be trusted. She had even begun to grow fond of him. Now she realized what a fool she had been. The time she had spent with Sabrann had opened her eyes anew to the twisted thinking of the emperor's men and all those who served them. She was lucky to have escaped before she had been hopelessly corrupted like Merula, a woman who survived by trampling on others. Or Chloe, who had no vision of anything beyond the walls of the bar.

She wished she had been able to bring the child with her: the one they had called Phryne. When she reached home she would spread the word of what had happened to her. Perhaps the child's people would send warriors. Perhaps not. There were cowards among the Brigantes too. Elders who acted out of fear and called it being sensible, or abandoned their own ways and called it progress. The taint of Rome was like rot spreading through a crate of apples.

There was a dip in the road ahead. She could see the tops of wooden rails that must be the sides of a bridge. Beyond them, set well back-the Romans were afraid of ambushes, and always chopped down everything close to the road-stood a massive tree that was the right shape for an oak. That must be the marker for the track Sabrann had told her to follow.

As she looked, two cavalry horses appeared over the brow of the next rise. Tilla tugged the sack into a new position on her shoulder and kept an eye on the riders, who were progressing toward her at a leisurely trot. She slowed, not wanting to meet them on the narrow bridge.

It occurred to her that if she had a horse, she could make the journey far more easily. The weak arm would make it hard to mount, but once she was up, she would manage one-handed. She was a good rider. She had been allowed to ride her father's horses as a child. Perhaps someone would lend her a pony. Perhaps, if they wouldn't, she would wait until no one was looking and help herself.

She heard the clump of hoofbeats on the wooden bridge. She kept walking, head down, close to the shoulder so the horses would have plenty of room to pass.

Something inside the sack was poking into her back. As she shifted the weight the sack pulled at the fabric on her shoulder. She felt the gray hood slip backward. Quickly, she lifted her right hand to pull it forward again, but the cloth was caught under the weight of the sack and her weak arm did not have the strength to tug it free.

The horses were only about thirty paces away now. She turned to one side, swung the sack to the ground, and bent over, busying herself with adjusting the hood and pinning it back into place. She could hear the approaching crunch of hooves on the gravel. The men were talking to each other.

The hood was back in place. The horses were almost level with her now. She slid her right arm in under the cloak, realizing as she did so that two or three inches of grimy bandage had been poking out of the end of her sleeve.

The horses were next to her. The riders were still chatting as if they had noticed nothing. The bandage had probably looked like a glimpse of undertunic.

They had passed. She grabbed the neck of the sack and swung it back over her shoulder.

Behind her, the hooifbeats faltered and began to grow louder. The riders were coming back.