The night guards who patrolled the streets to frighten off scavenging wolves and marauding Britons would not be on duty yet, and none of the civilians living out here would want to tackle a gang of legionaries bent on mischief. Ruso didn’t want to tackle them either, but he supposed it was his duty to go and take a look. He clattered up the steps, assured Tilla, who was waiting for him, that he would be back to eat in a minute and left before she could ask where he was going or — worse — insist on joining him.
The soldiers were not difficult to find: he only had to follow the sound of overexcited young men urging each other to do stupid things. Instead of making their way back to barracks, they had drifted down towards the river. Despite the noise — or perhaps because of it — Ruso seemed to be the only other person on the streets. The snack bar had put up its shutters for the night. The tenants of the nearby houses had chosen to bar their doors and mind their own business.
The men had their victim pinned against the wooden parapet of the bridge. None of them seemed to notice the Army medical officer making his way towards them through the rough grass of the riverbank. As he drew closer he was surprised to see that the small figure was not a woman, but a native boy of about nine or ten. His captors, jostling around him like crows squabbling over a corpse, were accusing him variously of thieving, of spying and of being a snivelling little British bastard.
Ruso strode up on to the bridge and adopted a friendly tone for ‘Where did you find this one?’ just as a couple of the men hoisted the boy up on to the parapet, seized his ankles and tipped him backwards. The boy’s shrieks of terror provoked more laughter as they dangled him head-first above the rocky bed of the river. Someone shouted above the din, ‘Shut up or we’ll drop you.’
Ruso vaguely recalled a couple of the faces but could not name them. Perhaps they had been patients. There were thousands of troops in the north of Britannia, and there had been so many casualties at the height of the rebellion that he could remember only a blurred succession of mangled bodies. He raised his voice. ‘What’s going on here?’
The shrieking stopped. There was some confused shuffling about as the men realized they were being addressed by an officer. One of them attempted a salute, with limited success.
Finally the man holding the nearest foot announced, ‘We caught a spy.’
The man’s upper lip was distorted by a fresh red scar that reached to the corner of his eye. Ruso recalled stitching one very much like it. Probably neither of them had been in a fit state to remember the other.
He glanced over the parapet. The captive was a skinny creature whose ragged tunic had fallen over his face. Tails of mousy hair were dangling just clear of the water. ‘That’s a spy?’
‘What’s he doing snooping round at this hour, then?’ demanded the scarred one.
‘Let’s get him up and ask him.’
The man looked askance at Ruso, as if he was wary of being tricked. A voice behind him hissed, ‘Let him up, mate. You’ll get us all in trouble.’
Ruso said, ‘He’s only a child.’
‘They use kids,’ said the man.
‘And women,’ chipped in somebody else.
‘Yeah, kids and women. Don’t ya?’ The man gave the bare foot a shake, as if its owner was responsible for the unsporting practices of the British rebels.
The child responded with a howl.
‘He’s frightened enough now,’ said Ruso. ‘Get him back up.’
From somewhere behind the man came, ‘Come on, mate, that’s enough!’ to which he hissed, ‘Shut up, I’m dealing with it!’ He turned back to Ruso. ‘We’re not finished yet. It’s no good being soft on ’em. You think he’s scared? This is nothing. If you knew what his lot did to our lads on the pay wagon — ’
‘I saw exactly what they did to the lads on the pay wagon,’ said Ruso, not wanting to be reminded of it. He had ridden out with the rescue expedition in the forlorn hope that some of the victims of the ambush would still be able to use medical help.
‘You’d best stay out of this, sir,’ suggested one of the men Ruso had seen before somewhere.
‘He can’t,’ prompted the man holding the other foot. ‘He’s got a native girlfriend.’
Ruso squared his shoulders. ‘My name is Gaius Petreius Ruso, Senior Medical Officer with the Twentieth Legion, and I’m taking that Briton into custody. Lift him back on to the bridge. That’s an order.’
‘We already got him where we want him,’ growled the man.
‘
It was never clear whether they dropped the boy on purpose or by accident. One second his arms were dangling above the water, the next there was a scream and a splash, and the thin body began to slide downstream between the rocks while his captors began shouting at him to swim and quarrelling about whose fault it was and who should get him out.
The last thing Ruso wanted to do was haul several none-too-sober men out of the river. Ordering two to fetch help and the rest to stay where they were, he placed one hand on the parapet and vaulted down on to the bank.
The river god was kinder to the boy than the Army had been: his body had wedged against a boulder, and was being held there by the force of the flow. Ruso stepped into the rush of peat-brown water that, even in late July, still carried the cold of northern hills. It was not deep but it was moving swiftly, and he felt the tug against his legs. The only way to reach the boy was to wade out to where he was marooned. Ruso slithered and splashed, trying not to lose his footing on the slippery rocks, occasionally bending to grab at the top of a boulder to keep his balance. Yells of encouragement and advice came from the bridge. Ahead of him, the boy lifted his head and began to move.
‘Stay where you are!’ Ruso shouted over the sound of the water, afraid the child would dislodge himself and be swept further down. There was a channel at least four feet wide between him and the boy. Now he was closer he could see that the river, thwarted in other directions by the boulders, flowed through the gap fast and smooth and deep. A tentative step told him that, as soon as he let go, the force of the water would sweep him off to be battered against the rocks downstream.
He should have told those men to fetch a rope. He turned to call to the others, but they were so busy shouting suggestions, bawling, ‘Man in the river!’ and warning him to be careful that they weren’t listening. The boy called something in British and tried to pull himself up. The only effect was to shift him closer to the deep channel.
‘Don’t move!’ called Ruso, holding up one hand in a ‘stop!’ gesture. He added, ‘I’ll come and get you,’ with more confidence than he felt. He could make his way back to the bank, cross the bridge and try from the other side, but the boy might be swept away in the meantime. He could try to get a grip in a crack in the rock this side and reach across …
It almost ended in disaster. He managed to haul himself back and clung to the nearest boulder, gasping with the effort and the cold, vaguely aware of more cries from the bridge as the boy’s body slid closer to the channel. He dragged himself upright and struggled to unfasten his belt with stiff fingers. It was not the form of rescue he would have chosen, but it was the boy’s only chance. He pulled the belt tight around his wrist, prayed the buckle would hold, gripped the rock behind him again and flung the loose end of the belt towards the boy.
The child managed to grab it on the third attempt. ‘Wrap it round your wrist!’ yelled Ruso, hoping the boy was stronger than he looked and waiting for him to get a good hold with both hands. He was about to shout, ‘Ready?’ when the boy launched himself into the flood and was instantly swept down the gap. Ruso felt the jerk as the belt tightened. The force of the water on the child’s body dragged at his arm. His grip on the rock began to slide, and he felt himself being pulled into the flow.
Suddenly there was a hand clamped around his arm. Someone else was dragging at his tunic, wrenching him back up and out of the power of the water. He felt the blessed scrape of dry rock beneath him.
Miraculously, the child had managed to keep hold. He scrabbled up on to the boulder, then got to his feet and fled across the exposed rocks while Ruso’s rescuers were still congratulating each other and telling him he didn’t want to go in the river by himself like that, sir — what was he thinking?
If they had left him to recover at his own pace, the accident would never have happened. But his rescuers seemed determined to make up for their earlier misdemeanours. Having pulled him to safety, they now decided to form a human chain across the rocks and hustle him to dry land as fast as possible. The moment he attempted to
