“People will be afraid of you,” she said. “Small children will run away crying.”
The half smile returned. “Is it very bad?”
“The swelling will go down by tomorrow. The bruise will get worse.” She traced a faint line around the base of his eye socket with her forefinger. “It is all around here, black and purple. And part of the white is red.”
“This is nothing.”
“It does not look like nothing.”
“It is nothing to what they have done to others.” He indicated the graze along her cheek. “We make a matching pair.”
“I upset a baker,” she explained. “He was trying to cheat my-” She stopped herself. “He was asking more than I wanted to pay.”
“Did you win?”
“No.”
The bloodshot eye gave her a glance that was probably more alarming than he intended. “Three winters gone by, daughter of Lugh, and neither of us is much the wiser.”
“And what else has happened while I have been away?”
“The usual things,” he said. “The harvests have been poor, but they still take the taxes. What little people have is being saved for the feast at the Gathering, but nearly everyone is running out now. Except the soldiers in the fort. The emperor’s men will be the last to starve.”
She dared not confess that she too would be one of the last to starve. She sat him up and wrapped strips torn from an old linen undershirt around his wounds. Then she lay beside him on the bracken bed and gazed into the dying firelight, thinking of how very differently things had turned out from the way they had expected, and of how sad it would be to hear the old songs and stories at the summer Gathering without the family they had both loved. The family that had been sent so violently to the next world.
“Their bodies were treated with honor,” he said suddenly, thinking the same thing. “At least we could do that.”
“But you had no body for me. Why did you believe I was dead?”
“Catavignus said you must have been inside when the house burned down. There would be nothing but ash.”
“Surely someone tried to find out?”
“I asked him what he was doing. He said he sent messages north to ask if you were a prisoner, and heard nothing.” He paused. “Ash has never been treated with such reverence.”
“But I was waiting!”
“If you had sent a message to say you were alive, we would have come.”
“If I could have sent a message I would have come myself!” She rolled over. “And what about Trenus?” The memory of her captor made her shudder. “I saw no sign of punishment for Trenus, and he was the leader.”
“I said we should gather up men and act. Catavignus said we should leave Trenus to the army because he is a Votadini and we mustn’t start a war between the tribes.”
She sat up. “They were the ones who started it!”
“I know,” he said, his hand seeking hers again. “I know. But Catavignus was next of kin, so his wishes were respected.” After a moment he added, “Lie down, you are letting the cold air in.”
She threw herself back down onto the bed. “Did you fast against Trenus?”
“Of course. We made a curse against him, and I fasted until your cousin persuaded me to stop. She said five lives were enough to lose.”
Aemilia. She might have guessed. “So while you were cursing and starving, what did the army do about Trenus raiding and murdering on the land they are supposed to protect?”
“What do you think?”
“I know what I think. I am asking you.”
“You know how it is. They’re only interested if one of them is involved. Or if we don’t pay the taxes. They sent some men up to look at what was left of the house.”
“And did nothing, I suppose.”
“And did nothing,” he agreed. “But things are beginning to change now. You will see when you come to the Gathering. The gods are waking. People are remembering where they hid their courage. The army is learning to fear us again.”
She wondered whether to tell him about the god in the yard, but he would ask questions and she was not sure she understood it herself yet. Instead she said, “You must be careful. Frightened men are dangerous.”
“It is the Romans and their friends who should be careful. A leader has come at last who hunts with the power of the gods. The army cannot catch him, and they never know where he will strike next.”
“He struck today,” said Tilla. “One legionary is very badly hurt and others are injured.”
“Really? How badly hurt?”
“He has lost a leg. He may not live.”
“A man from the legions!” Rianorix chuckled. “Well, that’s one that won’t be bothering us for a while.”
“He had just become a father,” she said.
Rianorix observed that it was a pity he had not been injured before he had time to spawn. “The soldiers are afraid. They are looking for friends. I hear they are fetching Trenus down to dine with the new governor when he comes to visit.”
“What?”
“Daughter of Lugh, this blanket will only cover us both if you lie still.”
She pushed a fold of blanket down into the gap between them. “Tell me it’s not true.”
“Trenus is a head man of a friendly tribe.”
“He is a thief and a murderer!”
“He’s useful to them. His people lie between the army and the tribes they never managed to conquer.”
“I know that,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “I had to live there.”
A log tumbled in the fire, sending up a fountain of sparks.
He said, “I thought about you often, daughter of Lugh. I prayed to meet you in the next world so that I could ask your pardon for being too late to save you.”
“Did you come to help?”
“As soon as I heard the alarm. When I got here the house was a furnace, and you were gone.”
She supposed he had done his best. Under the circumstances. Believing that she was dead and that it was not his place to overrule her kin and seek vengeance. “Well,” she said. “I am home now.”
He circled his fingertips lightly on the back of her hand. “And even more beautiful than I remembered.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am also very tired, and if you move, the bandages will shift and all my work will be wasted.”
His hand slid across her thigh. “Do you remember when we did it just by lying still and-”
“No,” she lied. “Go to sleep.”
26
Whatever his ineptitude at managing staff, it seemed Thessalus was a competent medic. By the time Ruso had finished an evening tour of the wards, admired his predecessor’s handiwork on the splinted leg, and diagnosed the malingerers as in need of various gruesome therapies that he promised to administer first thing in the morning, the long hours of the spring day were at last coming to an end. He needed to visit Thessalus, but he was more immediately concerned with what had happened to Tilla. Quite possibly she had gone to visit her family, or been called to deliver a baby, but surely she would have left a message-or at least the supper she was supposed to be bringing-at the gate?
The fort had the customary four entrances, and in the customary fashion the information Ruso wanted was at the last one he tried. He had two questions, but as soon as he introduced himself the gate guard did not stop to find out what they were. Instead, the man groped inside the folds of his tunic and handed Ruso a coin. “I didn’t mean no
