Romans. But the celebration had become something she could not have foreseen. Under the leadership of the Stag Man, or the Messenger, or whatever he called himself, these ordinary folk had taken the medicus prisoner, worked themselves up into a frenzy, and threatened to murder him. As the big soldier she remembered from the clinic looped a bandage around her thumb and back around her wrist, she tried to think what she could say in her people’s defense. There was not a lot.
Within what seemed minutes of arriving, the medical staff had been ordered to leave. “We just want them alive enough to talk,” one of the officers had explained to Valens.
“You know who they will want us to talk about,” she whispered to Rianorix.
“They won’t find out anything,” Rianorix assured her. “Nobody knows where he comes from. He’s very careful.”
“But they all suffer for him.”
“If we want freedom, sister, some of us will have to be prepared to suffer.”
It sounded like a speech he had heard at a meeting. “But not him,” said Tilla. “He is very careful.”
They paused as a guard walked past. When he had gone Rianorix hissed, “He is our best hope. What is the matter with you?”
“There is nothing the matter with me!” she retorted in his ear, frustrated at the constrictions placed on the argument by the need not to be overheard. “You are the one who needs to open your eyes. I can see that he is bringing nothing but trouble.”
“And what do your friends the Romans bring?”
She grabbed his wrist. “The Romans are not my-”
“No talking!” called out one of the guards. As one of the people translated the order for the benefit of those without Latin, he yelled again, “I said, no talking!”
Over in the corner, a baby began to cry. A small voice wailed, “I’m cold!”
There were several hisses of, “Sh!”
The old man began to cough again.
Thirty-four people. Children and mothers and grandparents.
He is our best hope.
Thirty-four people.
We just want them alive enough to talk.
“The Romans are not my friends,” she breathed. “But I am not fool enough to follow everyone who opposes them.”
“You are much changed, daughter of Lugh.”
“And you are just as stupid as ever,” she retorted.
“You there! Stand up!”
Tilla put a hand on Rianorix’s shoulder to urge him to stay down. She gathered up her skirt and got to her feet.
“Come over here!”
She was aware of heads lifting, frightened eyes following her, bodies shuffling to let her pass as she picked her way across to where the guard stood. Before she was near enough to be hit, she stopped. “I would like to see the commanding officer,” she announced in Latin, her voice clear in the silent courtyard. “I have some information to offer him.”
80
It was still dark when Ruso realized that he was awake. This realization was followed by the niggling sensation that there were things he did not want to think about. But no matter how much he tried not to disturb them, the worries had woken with him and were already yawning, stretching, and preparing to accompany him for the rest of the day.
Tilla: his girl, who had run away to Rianorix when she was in trouble and was now held prisoner with other natives over at headquarters. The girl to whom he had rashly offered marriage and who hadn’t even noticed.
Thessalus: incurably sick and begging him to save the man who was stealing Tilla away from him.
Aemilia: betrayed by her lover and now, if he succeeded today, about to learn that she had been betrayed by her father as well.
Albanus: the clerk who was lying in bed with a fractured skull because of the inquiries he had made at Ruso’s request.
Catavignus: the murderer against whom there was no evidence.
Metellus: the schemer whose carefully planned security raid he had ruined.
Then there was the carpenter he had failed to save. Even when Ruso had been minding his own business, he hadn’t succeeded in doing anything useful.
He curled down under the covers and put his hands over his ears, but the whisper accusing him of being a bungling fool still filled his head. He came up for air, turned over, and sighed. He opened his eyes and stared at the looming shape of the barrel, just visible in the gray that was creeping around the edges of the shutters. He could only have been in bed an hour or two at the most, having been delayed at the infirmary dealing with injuries that were more the result of men charging around by moonlight with drawn weapons than of any resistance from the fleeing natives.
How could anyone feel this tired and yet not sleep?
He rolled onto his back and tried to breathe slowly and deeply.
Did you kill Felix?
Of course she heard, you idiot.
He sat up, punched his pillow until it was fat and soft, then threw himself back down on it and tried to convince himself that things were not so bad. He must pull himself together. Make the effort to find something to look forward to.
Batavian hospital porridge for breakfast was not much of a reason for rejoicing. It is officially summer was no better. You are getting out of this place soon was no consolation when he added, probably without Tilla. The dearth of any other reasons for cheer left him feeling more depressed than ever.
He had no idea how much time had passed when he heard movement in the next room. It seemed that Valens, who had spent what was left of the night on a mattress shifted into the treatment room, was no longer sleeping. Ruso glanced at the barrel. He could make out the iron hoop around the base now. He pushed back the covers.
It was dawn, Valens was already awake, and anyway, this was important.
Valens wandered back from the latrine and grunted when he saw Ruso. “Do they need both of us?”
“It’s not a call,” explained Ruso, sitting on the end of Valens’s mattress and wrapping his own blanket around his shoulders. It might be summer, but it was not warm.
“Good,” replied Valens, climbing back under the covers and hauling ineffectively at the other end of the blanket Ruso was sitting on. “Uh, gedoff.”
“It’s morning.”
“Go away.”
“You’re awake.”
“No’m not.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Me?”
“I know,” said Ruso. “But there isn’t anybody else.”
“It is all a bit of a mess,” agreed Valens. “You will keep getting involved in things, Ruso. Anybody’d think you didn’t have enough to do.”
“I was asked to take this on,” pointed out Ruso. “Well, some of it, anyway.”
“Still, look on the bright side. There’s a nine in ten chance that Tilla won’t be executed. Catavignus will probably forget what you said-”
