Ruso found the driest corner of a towel that someone should have changed this morning. “Apart from that, you did well.”
“Thank you, sir.” A little color appeared in the youth’s cheeks as he ventured, “I haven’t done anything like that before, sir.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Ruso promised him, wondering if that sounded more like a threat.
“He will be all right, won’t he, sir?”
Ruso handed the towel over. “If we keep on with the treatment, there’s a slim chance he might get better by himself and still have two arms.”
“What if he doesn’t, sir?”
“Taking the arm off might save the rest of him. But the longer we wait and the weaker he gets, the worse his chances are.”
The color in the cheeks drained away again. “I can’t believe any man would do that to himself, sir.”
Ruso said, “I doubt he intended it to end up this bad. Any idea what drove him to it?”
The youth looked around him, but the wooden rows of latrine seats provided no inspiration. He said, “You could try asking Centurion Geminus, sir.”
Geminus, the man who seemed to know the answer to every question. The man with two shadows.
By the time the trumpet sounded the next watch, Ruso had been relieved to find that Austalis was the only neglected patient. He had discharged a couple of men who looked sorry to be leaving; admitted another who arrived doubled over with stomach cramps; and been almost certain that the recruit who claimed to have walked into a door was the man who had been marched away by Geminus’s shadows. He checked on the wrist and the injured foot from yesterday, and looked in on Austalis again. When all the staff on duty had crowded into the office, he chose the most sensible-looking orderly to be responsible for Austalis. “I want him kept clean and comfortable, and I want to be told straightaway if anything changes. And I want it made known that he’s allowed a visitor. Just one friend, and very briefly. I don’t want him worn out.”
The orderly raised a hand. “Sir, he’s supposed to be in isolation.”
“I take it his centurion wants to put the others off trying the same trick?”
If any men in the room had dared to guess at the centurion’s intentions, they were not fool enough to admit it.
“I’ll square it with Geminus,” he assured them. “And given the condition of the patient, I think we can count on his visitor to spread the word about the stupidity of self-inflicted injuries.”
Chapter 20
The mansio slave’s directions were good. It was barely two hundred paces upstream along the muddy path from the wharf to where the old willow bent to dip its leaves into the glittering silver of the river. She raised one arm, counted to three, and flung the coin. The small splash was washed away in the flow. While the gift was sinking, she said a prayer to the river and to the goddess to look kindly on her husband and keep him safe. Then she asked for a blessing on her new start, and for courage, because the decision that had seemed so clear this morning had faded in the sunlight.
Something white caught her eye. Two swans, a cob and a pen, were gliding downstream. She watched as they drifted past the fort walls, smoothly changed direction to pass behind the approaching ferry, and disappeared beyond the warehouses. It was a sign. She let out a long breath and whispered a prayer of thanks, remembering the wounded Brigante warriors she had tended with stolen bandages and medicines during the troubles. None of them had complained about her being a woman.
“There you are! They told me you were here! What are you doing? Can I help?”
She turned, startled and not pleased. The pink dress was no cleaner than yesterday. “Good morning, Virana.”
“Are you looking for plants for healing?”
“Not this morning.”
Virana parted the fronds of the willow as if she hoped there might be something interesting beyond them, then let them fall. “This is where Sulio came to pray for the soul of Dannicus.”
“Is this where he drowned?”
“No, farther down by the ford. Sulio tried to save him but he couldn’t, and then the Centurion had to get Sulio out too.”
“It must have been frightening.”
“I suppose so. I was at home with my family.” She hauled the beads out of her cleavage and hung them down the front of the pink dress. “They were all being horrible to me, as usual. Did you hear the trumpets this morning? They don’t usually sound like that. Was it because of the sacrifice?”
“Sulio must have been a brave man.”
“Oh, he didn’t jump in. He was there anyway.”
When Tilla looked puzzled, she said, “He hurt his knee while he was on one of those long marches they do, and Dann stopped to help him, and then they had to get back across the river. Well, that’s what they’re saying.”
Tilla frowned. “Why did they not use the ferry?”
The girl began to fiddle with the beads again. “I wasn’t there myself.”
“You can tell me the rest of the story while we walk back to town.”
The string had twisted and hooked over one bead, making a loop. Virana frowned as she tried to straighten it. “If I tell you, will you tell your husband?”
“My husband is a medicus. He understands about secrets.”
The bead was finally disentangled. “I only know what I heard.”
“That will be fine.”
“You must swear on the bones of your ancestors that you won’t say who told you.”
“I swear.”
The path was only wide enough for one. Tilla’s skirts brushed through the overhanging grass while Virana’s voice sounded in her ears.
“The river is always cold,” the girl said, “and it rises with the tide. It’s worse after a new moon. And it had rained a lot, so the water was almost at the top of the landing stage.”
Tilla could not remember much about the landing stage; she would have to go down and take a look. “So it was dangerous to cross?”
“Even the ferrymen don’t like it when it’s like that. Anyway, they were late back and the centurions were waiting for them and somebody heard Geminus shout across to them that he wasn’t going to send the ferry because it was their own fault. And he told them to swim.”
“Did he not see it was dangerous?”
“Dann was never any good at swimming.”
What had her husband said?
She did not need to ask why the recruits had obediently entered deep fast-flowing water. She had spent long enough in and around army camps to know that they would not dare to refuse an order, in case something worse
