would have to be delivered as a message at one of the fort gates. Beyond that, Gambax’s mind seemed to be as blank as his face. He decided to try a different approach.
“Gambax, do you know anything about Doctor Thessalus and fish?”
The deputy considered this for a moment, then offered, “He’s partial to a bit of fish, sir.”
“He didn’t seem to want to eat it,” said Ruso. “He seemed to want to do something-ah!” He paused, rerunning the conversation in his memory. A fish around the head. A fish on a dish around the head until it’s… “Have you heard of the torpedo fish?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“It gives a shock to the nerves. I’ve heard of it being prescribed for headaches. And it’s quite successful with gout, apparently.”
“A fish that gives a shock to the nerves, sir?”
“Yes,” insisted Ruso, aware that he was sounding almost as delusional as his patient.
“Some sort of poison, sir?”
“No, just a sort of-shock. A jolt. Like lightning. Only not as big, obviously.”
“No,” agreed Gambax. “I suppose not. And it’s definitely a fish?”
“Yes,” said Ruso.
“You won’t find it around here, sir.”
“Does he suffer from headaches?”
“Not particularly, sir.”
“Gout?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Ruso scratched one ear. “He must have read about it in a book.”
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Gambax. “We don’t have that sort of book here.”
Ruso was beginning to wonder why Thessalus’s strange fantasies about murder had not fixed themselves upon Gambax. “I hear there’s a public clinic over at the baths tomorrow,” he said. “Will you be deputizing for Thessalus?”
“Me, sir?” A faint smirk appeared, as if Ruso had just suggested something ridiculous. “’Fraid I can’t help you there, sir. Army medical training. I don’t know anything about women and children. But don’t you worry. I’ll find you a good bandager to help out.”
The main thing Ruso knew about the ailments of women and children was that he wasn’t very confident with them either. “I’ll think about it,” he conceded. “And you’ll have time to supervise the cleanup back here. Is my room cleared?”
To his surprise the reply was, “All done, sir.”
“Good. If my housekeeper turns up, show her to it. You haven’t seen her, have you? Blond girl. Local.”
Gambax’s brief flash of helpfulness had faded. The smirk reappeared. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Can’t help you there.”
Finally, he was alone. A shaft of late afternoon sunlight revealed a sparkle of dust motes dancing in the space above a narrow bed. It also illuminated the fat barrel that blocked access to the rest of the room. Bed and barrel fit perfectly into the space provided, but with the barrel in its present position, the only way to reach the chair at the far end of the room was to clamber across the mattress, and the only way Ruso could sit on the chair and still have room for his feet was to remove the trunk resting on the seat and place it on top of the bed. On the other hand, if he shifted the barrel to the far end of the room everyone would have to climb over his furniture to reach the beer. This had not been one of his better ideas. Unfortunately, it was too late to back down now.
He surveyed the small space into which his belongings were crammed and wondered how he was going to fit Tilla into it as well. He would have to explain to her that one of the first steps in restoring the infirmary to working order was to establish control of the beer supply, and what better way to do so than to have it under his own personal supervision? Besides, she would probably want to spend most of the few days they were here with her remaining family.
He would insist on more comfortable arrangements down the road at Ulucium. Maybe Postumus would save him a decent place. On reflection, maybe not. Definitely not, if he’d followed Ruso’s recommendation to visit Festinus the barber.
Ruso made the necessary furniture removals to get to his chair. The room looked no better from this end than the other. There was not even room to rock the chair onto its back legs, which was a pity, because he needed to do some serious thinking.
There were several things he did not want to think about. One was the question of exactly who, or what, Tilla had seen in the yard of the inn. Another was what the sulkers and skulkers might at this moment be doing with the head of Felix the trumpeter. Ruso shuddered. He was not going to like the north of Britannia very much.
What he did need to think about was Doctor Thessalus. Apparently Thessalus knew the dreadful details of the murder even though they seemed to be a secret from everyone else-but the prefect and Metellus were adamant that he was not guilty. The chances of getting any sense out of Thessalus himself were minimal. He needed to track down the guard who had taken that urgent call for a doctor and find out from him where Thessalus had gone that night after he returned from the bar. In the meantime, if he was to stand any chance of sorting out the infirmary before the governor’s new medic arrived, he needed to find a way of spurring Gambax into action.
That barrel would be better six inches nearer the door. Ruso got to his feet and gave it an experimental shove. It did not move. He turned and braced his back against it with his feet on the floor beneath the chair, and heaved. The barrel gave way suddenly, tipping away from him and almost overturning to block the door as he tried not to fall backward. As he recovered himself it landed back into place with a thud. He was wondering whether to call for reinforcements when there was a knock on the door. The bandager from the Twentieth was worried about the carpenter.
19
The log walls surrounding the fort were more silvered with age now. The steep grassy ramparts that rose up beneath them were spattered with spring flowers. Little had changed since the last time Tilla had seen this place. But everything was different.
When she left, the soldiers’ fort had been impressive. Now that she had lived in Deva, it looked almost puny. She wondered if the men who were busy clearing out the rampart ditch knew that their fort was nothing to be proud of. Probably not. What would they say if somebody told them?
She walked on. Ahead of her, beneath two wooden towers, was a dark rectangle surrounding a splash of late afternoon sunlight. The gates were open. In a moment she would be able to see inside.
Her parents and grandparents had watched from the top of the ridge as soldiers stacked turf into ramparts and hammered in posts around a patch of land that their people had walked over freely for generations. Once the walls were up none of them had ever set foot on that land again apart from her uncle, who usually had more wisdom than to boast of it when her father was around. Like most sensible people, the rest of them had done their best to avoid Rome’s intrusions into what-according to the very old-had once been a peaceful valley. Although you could never trust old people not to exaggerate. Any peace must have always been fragile with the Votadini tribe as neighbors. Perhaps this was why some people had imagined that the arrival of the Romans might be a good thing.
The truth, of course, was quite different. The truth was that when foreigners desecrated your land, cut down your trees, fouled your water supply, and made impressive speeches about bringing peace in return for taxes, nothing good could possibly come of it. She could imagine what her family would be saying now if they were watching her walking toward the gates, knowing there was a soldier waiting for her inside.
“It was all I could do, Mam,” she whispered. “He is a good man. He helps people.”
She was almost at the gatehouse now. It was nowhere near as grand as the smallest of the gatehouses at Deva. The irrepressible grass had crept up around the feet of the supporting timbers, reminding any soldiers who took the trouble to read the signs that the spirit of the land could not be destroyed. Beyond it, through the open gates, she could see two men slapping clean white lime wash onto the end of a building as a squad marched past
