them and-
“Halt!”
The crossed spears in her path had appeared so quickly from the shadows that the soldiers holding them must have been watching her approach.
“Password?” demanded the shorter of the two.
“I do not know it. My master is only just arrived.”
“Password,” he repeated, perhaps thinking she had not heard the order, although she was close enough to see the yellow teeth and the black hairs sprouting from his nostrils.
She backed away to a more comfortable distance. “I do not know the password,” she explained again. “My master is a doctor with the Twentieth Legion. He comes today with an injured man.”
“Gate pass?”
“I am just arrived too.”
“No entry without a pass.”
“I cannot get a pass without going in.”
“Not our problem.”
“But I am his housekeeper!”
The two men exchanged glances. They seemed to find this amusing. The symmetry of the crossed spears wavered as they relaxed.
“Come to cook his dinner, have you?” inquired the taller one.
She lifted the bag that contained damp clothes needing to be hung out to dry, and now two apples and the pastries she had brought from Susanna’s snack bar for supper. “Yes.”
“Tuck him into bed?” suggested hairy nose.
Tilla pointed past them to the white buildings. “I will live in there.”
“Then you’ll have to get a job with the prefect’s family.”
“Or marry him,” suggested the taller one.
“We don’t know what you’ve been getting up to with the legion,” said hairy nose, “But ’round here, women and children live out there.” He shifted his spear to indicate the road outside. “Run off and find yourself a bed, and the doctor will come and give you the treatment later.”
Tilla had met enough ignorant guards to know that showing annoyance would make matters worse. The only things that would impress them were fear of their superiors, and cash. “My master,” she said, trying the cheaper option, “is Senior Medical Officer Gaius Petreius Ruso. My name is Tilla. I ask you to send a message-”
“We’re the Tenth Batavians,” the taller one interrupted. “We don’t run messages for the legions.”
“Why don’t you put your request in writing, Tilla?” suggested his companion: a remark they both seemed to think was extremely witty.
Tilla, who could no more write than fly-and they knew it-placed her hands behind her back, gripped them tightly, and counted to five. Then she reached into her purse and brought out the last coin she possessed. As hairy nose hid it somewhere on his person, she said, “Tell my master-”
“Sorry, love,” he said. “We’re not allowed to run messages for girlfriends.”
“But I have paid you!”
“Have you?” He held his hands wide and looked down his chest as if he was searching for it. “Are you sure?”
“Take the message, or give me my money back.”
“I didn’t see any money.” He jerked a thumb toward his friend. “He didn’t see any either.”
“I will report you to my master and you will be in trouble!”
“Tell you what,” he suggested. “I’ll try doing a trick. Give me a kiss and I’ll see if I can make it reappear.”
Tilla looked them both up and down. “You are not worth it,” she said, turned on her heel, and strode away down the gravel road.
As she was passing the men who were clearing the ditch, the taller guard called after her, “Hey, whatsyourname!”
“Tilla,” prompted hairy nose.
“Tilla! Do you want to leave a message or not?”
“Go on, Tilla!” urged some interferer from the depths of the ditch.
“You can give me a message any day, Tilla!” added one of his comrades.
Tilla was tired. She was hungry. She was at the end of a long journey. The thought that her family was in the next world was no consolation for the fact that they were not here to greet her in this one. Now she had been humiliated by the men her master thought of as comrades. She stopped. She turned to face the men in the ditch. In her own dialect, speaking fast so they would not understand, she said, “I have a message for you.”
There was a chorus of cheers.
“You are very stupid and ugly men,” she informed them, smiling sweetly, “and the gods of this land will curse you for the disrespect you show when you hack holes in it.”
This time the cheers were more uncertain. Someone said, “What did she say?”
“She says she loves me!” roared one of the men, scrambling up the side of the ditch toward her. “Come here, Tilla-”
“Back to work!” bellowed a voice from farther along the ditch. “And you, girl, clear off before I feed you to them.”
20
Ruso slumped down the roughly plastered wall until he was sitting on the floorboards with his legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes were level with the body of the carpenter, whose pulse had faded some time ago but whom he had tried desperately and hopelessly to revive. He stared at the body, which could have been asleep. He knew from experience that amputations were best performed on the spot: Crushed legs did not travel well. But he now realized the internal injuries would have killed the man eventually wherever the surgery was carried out. His fate had been sealed from the moment the wagon hit him. His doctor’s insistence on interfering had merely prolonged his suffering and given false hope to his comrades and his family.
There were sound reasons why Ruso had made the decisions he had made, but he knew only too well that logic would not lift the burden of failure. Nor would the memories of past successes: the amputees who survived to swing out through the hospital doors on their crutches; the fevers cured; the eyesight saved; Tilla, whose shattered right arm had seemed almost beyond hope. There was no relief to be found in reason. The only comfort he could offer himself was a reminder that this feeling will pass.
He got to his feet. Postumus would be here in a moment. He neatened the bedding and drew the sheet up over the carpenter’s face. Then he went to the door and summoned Albanus to take a report.
He was just finishing dictation when Postumus arrived. The centurion was freshly shaved. He had a heavy red scrape down one side of his face. In other circumstances, Ruso would have enjoyed that.
Once the centurion had paid his respects to the corpse, he and Ruso withdrew to the corner of the room. The men of the Twentieth had been scheduled to march out at dawn, but now they would stay for a funeral.
“There’s a child,” said Ruso.
“I know. Didn’t even have time to name it, poor sod.”
“Yes he did,” insisted Ruso, hoping Postumus would not demand the details. “I was there. They did it early.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Tilla was the midwife.”
“What did he name it?”
“I can’t remember.”
The black eyes met his own. “He must have had a premonition.”
“So it seems,” agreed Ruso, suspecting Postumus knew full well that the carpenter hadn’t officially named his
