and secret discovery of the head of Felix the trumpeter, more milling around, and finally much excitement and galloping about. They had leaped over walls and ditches, plunged down steep slopes, picked their way through forests, and bowed flat to duck under the branches that scraped along helmets and plucked at clothes. They had thundered across open fields and followed hidden trails only to find that their quarry had doubled back, waded off through the stream, or gone around in circles.
Rianorix was never sighted. The dogs became tired and distracted as the trail grew fainter. Finally huntsmen, horses, and hounds beat a weary and mud-splattered retreat in search of a hot meal, but not until they had returned to the start of the chase and reexamined Rianorix’s home. A small cart in an outbuilding was deemed worth stealing, as was his ancient pony. Some of his clothes found their way into the cavalrymen’s saddlebags before his home was burned, his gates torn down and trampled in the mud, and his fences knocked flat. The men who knew what had been found on the grass behind the house had been sworn to silence on pain of death. They were the ones who led the destruction and neither Metellus nor Ruso made any effort to restrain them.
The rain had stopped but the light was fading by the time they reached the fort. Ruso glanced back at the horizon and saw a thick smudge of black smoke rising into the evening sky. He thought of Rianorix and Tilla curled up together like kittens on the bracken bed, and of the severed head of a man who had betrayed his lover. And he felt sorry for Thessalus, willing to sacrifice himself for a man who could commit such a hideous murder. He felt sorry for him, but he was not going to back up his lies. Ruso would tell the truth, Rianorix would be rightly executed according to the law, Thessalus would die peacefully in Veldicca’s house, and Veldicca… Veldicca would survive somehow. Women did.
He groped behind him, checking that the blanket containing the gruesome evidence was still firmly strapped on. He knew now that Felix had died from a massive fracture to the back of the skull: one that could have been inflicted with the stone he had found in the alley. The neatness of this discovery brought no satisfaction.
Ruso shifted in the saddle and shivered. There was scant warmth in leather riding breeches on a wet day, and the rain had soaked through patches in his cloak and chilled his shoulders. He would be glad to get back to the fort, and to hand over his grim burden for secret cremation.
Metellus was riding beside him with a smile playing on his lips. Despite failing to catch Rianorix, the man seemed to think they had done a fine day’s work.
64
Ruso collected a bowl of leftovers from the infirmary kitchen for himself and found Valens stretched out on an empty bed discussing horse breeding with the wounded men Ruso had met on his arrival.
“So,” said Valens, swinging his legs down from the bed and following Ruso to the treatment room. “Will it be venison tomorrow?”
“We didn’t kill anything,” said Ruso, settling into his chair before Valens got there. “Anyway, you and I will be at the guild of caterers dinner celebrating the imperceptible start of the British summer.”
“Ah yes. I forgot. Hosted by the fine Susanna who I’m told serves the best food in town. Although the menu will be a bit restricted because Susanna has some odd ideas about diet.”
Despite not wanting to take up his own invitation, Ruso felt an irrational pang of jealousy that Valens should have been similarly honored without being a putative family member.
“Apparently Catavignus has designs on Susanna,” said Valens, hitching himself up to perch on the treatment table. “Or maybe on her snack bar.”
Ruso poked unenthusiastically at the leftovers with his spoon. “How is it you’ve hardly gotten here and you’ve found all this out?”
“Albanus and I have been chatting,” said Valens. “His favorite waitress doesn’t want to work for Catavignus. Oh, by the way, I went across with Thessalus’s dinner and gave him the poppy tears he asked for. Nice chap. Why can’t we tell anybody that he’s ill?”
“It’s a long story.”
“And speaking of dinner, what have you done with the lovely Tilla?”
Ruso explained that she was staying with her uncle.
“You don’t seem very cheerful, Ruso. Have you two fallen out?”
“I’m busy. And it’s military personnel only inside the gates.”
“Oh dear. That must be frustrating for you.”
Ruso sighed. “There’s a native,” he explained. “A close friend of hers. Everyone except Tilla thinks he’s a loudmouth murdering bastard.”
“You have fallen out.”
“Meanwhile, Catavignus wants to know whether I’m going to marry her.” He scowled. “It’s not funny.”
“Sorry. Tell you what. Why don’t you leave it all behind for a while? I’ll relieve you here, and you go on up the road to join the rest of our men.”
“I can’t, I’ve got to report back to the prefect. Why don’t you go yourself?”
Valens frowned. “Because they’ll all know who I am, Ruso, and somebody will tell the Second Spear. Have some sense.”
Ruso busied himself scooping up the leftovers, which seemed to consist of cabbage doused in brown juice, and mused upon the shattered skull of the unlucky Felix the trumpeter. He would have liked to think of it as conclusive evidence, but there was something wrong about its opportune appearance inside a sack on the grass behind Rianorix’s house. The native must have known he was under surveillance, or he would not have run away. And knowing that, why would he leave behind the one thing that could prove his guilt?
Ruso had grown increasingly uneasy about it on the ride back to the fort. When he had raised the matter Metellus had simply suggested that Rianorix had not wanted to be caught carrying the grisly burden and as a final act of defiance, he had left it for them to find. Perhaps he had hoped it would distract his pursuers and buy him some time to make his escape. Whatever the reason, its recovery was good news. The Stag Man would not get his hands on it. There would be no native spell casting around it at secret gatherings, and the good folk of Coria would never know.
When Ruso had asked, “Why didn’t you find it up there before?” Metellus had replied, “Obviously, we didn’t look hard enough last time. He certainly hasn’t brought it home since. Even those dimwits on surveillance duty would have noticed that.”
“It all seems very convenient.”
“We need to be seen to be keeping order. Ruso. The native won’t be much of a loss.”
“But what if-”
Metellus raised a hand to silence him. “Don’t worry. If we find out later that it was put there by somebody else, we can arrange their quiet disappearance.”
“And that’s justice?”
“Rianorix got himself into this mess. He was issuing threats against a Roman soldier in a public place. There are people who would say that’s disrespect for the emperor. This isn’t just an isolated quarrel in a bar, you know. You need to take a wider view.”
Ruso had frowned. “I’ve always thought,” he said, “That the wider view is an excuse not to look too closely at the details you don’t want to see.”
“Has it ever occurred to you, Doctor, that you think too much?”
“Frequently,” said Ruso, wondering how he was going to break the news of the day’s events to Thessalus. “And I think you’re on very uncertain ground with this.”
“Fortunately for the security of the border, Ruso,” Metellus had replied, “what you think doesn’t matter.”
Valens was still talking. “… And if I told her I wasn’t thinking anything,” he said, “which I wasn’t, usually, she just kept on asking until I made something up.”
All Thessalus’s plans had been thwarted. He had brought disgrace upon himself for nothing. Valens appeared to be waiting for some sort of an answer.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said,” repeated Valens, “did you have trouble with Claudia asking what you were thinking all the
