“Rianorix has been released,” said Tilla, grasping for an end in this tangled account.
“Oh, thank the gods!” Aemilia ran her fingers through her hair, leaving pale tracks running back across her scalp. “Oh cousin, it was not my fault! I never meant anything to happen to him, truly! But nobody will believe me!”
“You didn’t mean anything to happen to Rianorix?”
“No, no-you don’t understand!”
“You asked Rianorix to curse one of the soldiers, but you didn’t expect anything to happen to either of them?” asked Tilla.
“No! When I thought I was with child I asked him to help me, but I didn’t mean he should… oh, why is he so stupid? This is all his fault, and everything is ruined!”
Tilla had been right. Aemilia had not changed. She was not even interested in where her cousin had been for the last three years.
“I must look terrible,” blurted Aemilia suddenly, groping beneath her pillow and producing a mirror. She peered into the polished bronze surface, gave it a vigorous rub against her sleeve, and peered again, tweaking her hair and muttering, “Oh, dear. Oh, dear…” She scrambled down to the end of the bed and began rummaging among a jumble of pots and vials and earrings and hairpins strewn across a small table. “If only your mam were here now! She would understand. She would know what to do.”
Tilla closed her eyes and thought of the time Aemilia had refused to get off the swing, shouting, “Push me! Push me harder!” and then run crying to Mam, blaming everyone else, when she fell off. The time Aemilia had watched from a safe distance while the daughter of Lugh groveled about collecting eggs from the hens’ cobwebby hiding places, then offered to help carry them and run to the house shouting, “Look at all the eggs I found!” The time when, finally exasperated, the eight-year-old daughter of Lugh had grabbed the cousin with the silly Roman name by the hair and shoved her into the nettle patch. The daughter of Lugh had been given a beating and the cousin with the silly Roman name had been given sympathy, a drink of warm honeyed milk, and crushed nettle stems to treat her stings. Whatever Aemilia did, Mam excused her on the grounds that she was a poor motherless child. Now Mam was not here to excuse her, yet still Tilla felt guilty for being angry with her. She said, “Rianorix is released, but they are still asking questions about him.”
Aemilia turned, makeup brush in her right hand, mirror in her left, revealing one painted eye and one naked one. “Did he tell them anything about me? They won’t come here, will they?”
“I don’t know.”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
Tilla felt the muscles in her jaw tighten and took a deep breath. Getting angry with her cousin, she reminded herself, was like getting angry with a sheep for being stupid. It ruined your day and the sheep was too dim to care. “What Mam would say,” she announced, “is that you should get up and wash and change your clothes and have something to eat and you will feel much better.”
Aemilia sniffed. “Do you think so?”
“Yes.”
“But how will that change anything?”
“Give me your clothes. I will hand them out to Ness. Does this window open? It stinks in here.”
Aemilia sniffed again and looked as though she was about to cry. “Don’t be angry with me, cousin. Please. I couldn’t bear it if you were angry with me.”
“You should be angry with yourself for what has happened to Rianorix. Do you know what the soldiers do to people when they question them?”
“You aren’t angry? Are you sure?”
Tilla, unlatching the window, ignored her.
“You are so kind, cousin. Just like your mam. She was always kind to me when nobody else was. Oh, I do miss your mam!”
“So do I. Now give me your dirty clothes. And stop crying. The makeup will run and then you will have to clean it all off and start again.”
Aemilia wriggled out of her tunic and began to release her heavy bosom from the creased and sweat-stained breastband. “Daddy and Ness are both angry with me,” she said.
Tilla took the pile of crumpled clothing and opened the door. “I will fetch some water.”
“Will it be warm?”
“I will see what I can do.”
“Tell Ness not to give my silk tunic to the washerwoman. I don’t want it lost!”
“Warm water, and the silk tunic is not to be sent to the washerwoman,” repeated Tilla, wondering how she had become a servant again so quickly.
“Oh, cousin,” cried Aemilia. “I am so happy to see you again!”
44
Thessalus was lying on the couch with his head propped on a cushion. His eyes opened as Ruso entered, but the rest of him did not move.
“Doctor.” The voice was weak. Ruso noticed the dark hollows around his eyes.
“How are you feeling??”
Thessalus appeared to find this a difficult question. In the end he said, “Not good, I think. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you,” said Ruso, and moved swiftly into, “I thought I’d drop in while I was passing,” before any fresh confusion arose over which of them was the doctor and which the patient.
“I have news for you,” he said. “Rianorix has been released. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.”
“I am a murderer!”
“You are troubled and confused. The medicine you have been taking to ease your mind has not helped.”
Thessalus sighed. “My head is aching,” he said. “Do you happen to have any-”
“Poppy tears?” suggested Ruso. “No.” He peered at the man, who really did not look well. He reached for his case. “I’ve some juice of dried roses boiled in wine.”
Moments later he handed Thessalus a cup.
“What is the thing that everybody knows except me, Thessalus?”
“I am too tired for philosophical questions.”
“I need to know about the emergency call that came in on the night Felix was killed.”
Thessalus did not seem to be listening.
“You came back from Susanna’s,” Ruso reminded him, “then you were supposed to be on duty at the infirmary but you were called to an emergency and went out again until dawn. Where did you go?”
Thessalus steadied the cup with the other hand and took a gulp of the medicine. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t remember anything at all. It must be in one of the spaces.”
Ruso said, “Spaces?”
Ruso looked at the boldly patterned plaid cloth that Thessalus had fetched from a box in the corner and was now holding out, draped across both arms. He scratched one ear. “I’m afraid I don’t quite.. ”
“The spaces in my memory,” said Thessalus, as if this would make perfect sense if Ruso could only make more effort to listen. “Look again.” His forearms, which he had held pressed together, moved apart. The cloth that had hung in a loop between them stretched out to form a soft horizontal surface “Now. Watch.” He drew his arms together again until they were touching from elbows to wrists, and adjusted their position so that the repeating pattern reformed perfectly across the two separate sections of cloth supported by his arms, leaving out the fold that hung between them. “You see? It looks the same, but what is missing?”
“The cloth in between?” suggested Ruso.
“Exactly!” said Thessalus. “And now?” He shifted one arm half an inch forward. The horizontal lines of the plaid shifted out of alignment. The join became obvious. What was not obvious-to Ruso, at least- was what this
