Thessalus seemed to be having difficulty staying awake. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. Decianus followed his gaze and saw that a fly had settled on the tray and was now busy cleaning its back legs. Decianus dismissed the guard and waved away the fly. Metellus, who had retreated to sit in the corner, said nothing.
“So, doctor,” said Decianus, “Tell me what’s so urgent.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed the doctor. “Right away, sir.” The silence that followed was broken by a hiccup. “Oops,” he said, a faint grin creasing his thin face. “Sorry, sir.”
Decianus reflected that it was very early in the day to be drunk. He nodded to Metellus, who approached the doctor and leaned close to repeat the order into his ear.
Thessalus’s smile faltered. He blinked several times. His mouth opened, closed again, and then, in an accent that betrayed a better education than everyone else in the room, offered the words, “I’ve come to confess to a murder, sir.”
Decianus leaned his elbows on the desk, placed his fingertips together, and eyed the unsteady Thessalus over the top of them. “You might want to reconsider what you’ve just said, doctor.”
The young man rubbed his unshaven jaw and appeared to be pondering this question. Then he said, “No, sir. I have to tell the truth. I was the man who killed Felix.”
Decianus sighed. “We already know who killed Felix, Thessalus. It wasn’t you.”
The dark eyes widened. “Holy gods! That wasn’t Felix?” The fingers that rose toward his mouth were trembling. “This is even worse than I thought. Is there another man missing, sir?”
A swift glance at Metellus assured Decianus that there was not. “What,” he said, “exactly, do you think you did to Felix?”
Thessalus swallowed. His eyes attempted to focus on the edge of the desk. Finally he said, “I think I may have, ah-I may have…” The words had failed but the meaning of the collision between the outer edge of the hand and the back of the neck was unmistakable.
Decianus glanced at Metellus again, then returned his attention to the doctor.
“Tell me what you did with the body.”
Thessalus appeared to be pondering the meaning of this question. Finally he said, “The local people believe the soul resides in the head, sir.”
“I see. So where is the soul of Felix residing now?”
“They take the enemy’s head home with them. They keep it on display as a trophy. Sometimes they make a cup out of the skull and drink from it.”
“That was years ago,” put in Metellus. “Even the northerners don’t get up to that sort of thing now.”
Instead of replying, Thessalus swayed alarmingly and grabbed hold of the desk for support.
“Stand up straight, man! Why on earth would you want to murder Felix?”
Thessalus’s eyes closed. His knees buckled. His body slumped to the floor.
“He’s relieved of duty,” said Decianus, leaning over the desk. “He’s to be confined to quarters until further notice. And he’s not to talk to anyone.”
When the semiconscious doctor had been dragged out, Decianus turned to Metellus. “Search his rooms.”
“It can’t have been him, sir. He’s not the type.”
“Then how does he know?”
There was a soft tap at the door. A servant scurried in and removed the tray. When he had gone Metellus said, “Audax must have talked.”
“That doesn’t seem likely.”
“Well, it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t you either.”
Decianus looked him in the eye. “It might have been better to tell the truth in the first place.”
“You’re doing the right thing, sir,” Metellus assured him. “We’ll keep Thessalus quiet, arrest the native, and it’ll all blow over.”
“It had better blow over before the governor gets here.”
“Do you want some ideas for the funeral speech?”
Decianus scowled at him. “No,” he said. “I want you to concentrate on keeping this thing under control.”
When he was alone, Decianus walked across to the small wooden shrine on the side wall of his office, sprinkled some more incense in the burner, and prayed that this mess was not about to get considerably worse.
5
Just as pos Tumus had predicted, the lone rider reappeared- on a low rise to their right this time-just after the column had stopped for water. The officers continued to ignore him. When everyone moved on, he disappeared.
Ahead of Ruso, Postumus was berating a marcher for some misdeed or other. Ruso found it difficult to see how anyone could get into trouble simply by putting one foot in front of another, but some remarkably creative men seemed to manage it. Indeed, a man on a long journey could begin to think and do all manner of bizarre things. He could start to wonder if his housekeeper truly had seen something strange in the yard at the inn. Tilla was no fool: perhaps he should have been more sympathetic. He could wonder what he should do with the rest of the stolen money. He could even, after he had exhausted all other possibilities, begin to wonder if he should have listened to his ex-wife. Certainly, since he had discovered the true extent of his family’s debts, Ruso had begun to see-too late-the sense of Claudia’s plans to expand his business.
“I’m not a businessman,” he had objected. “I’m a doctor.”
“But you never try to make yourself known, Gaius. Do you? I keep telling you!”
“I don’t want to be known. I’ve plenty of work already. If I make myself more known, I’ll have more patients than I can cope with.”
“Of course you will! That’s the idea. Take on an apprentice to deal with the easy cases and-”
“But if people want me, they want me. Not some apprentice.”
“Oh, Gaius, for goodness’ sake! All you have to do is hire somebody who’ll be nice to people! You said yourself that lots of patients get better by themselves and all you have to do is try not to kill them while they’re doing it!”
“I said what?”
In the course of the argument that followed, it became clear that some unguarded and long-forgotten remark of his had been horribly mangled on its journey through the space between his wife’s ears and her mouth.
Finally, unable to shake her belief that she was repeating his exact words, he said,
“I hope that’s not what you go around telling people?”
“Of course not! I care about your career, even if you don’t!”
Ruso scowled at the ears of his horse. He needed a promotion. Distracted by Tilla and entangled in that business about the barmaid, he had failed to impress the right people in Deva. He could not allow that to happen a second time. In the future he must avoid dabbling in matters that were none of his business. And he must make it clear to everyone at this temporary posting that Tilla was not the troublesome sort of native who met gods in stable yards or spread rumors about men with antlers, but a respectable housekeeper who was under proper control.
It was starting to spatter with rain again. Ruso leaned back in the saddle as the horse began to pick its way down a long slow drop that had been cut into the side of the hill. To his right, a bank loomed above the road. To the left, a grassy slope fell away into a thickly wooded valley.
The column must have been descending for at least half a mile when he drew the horse to a standstill. For some reason the pace had slowed to a crawl, and there seemed to be a line of stationary vehicles ahead. He heard Postumus bellow the order to halt.
It was not a wide stretch of road, and the cavalryman coming up the hill had to weave his mount through the queue of men and carts.
