“I can’t be of much help, I’m afraid, sir. And it’s not going to bring him back, is it?”
“That’s generally true of postmortem reports,” Ruso observed. “Was the clerk ordered to burn it?”
“Sir, please don’t ask. Nothing good will come of it.”
“Why not? Give me a good reason and I’ll leave it alone.”
“I–I can’t, sir.”
“I’ve wasted enough time on this. Perhaps I’ll get more sense out of Geminus.”
“Yes, sir. I expect so.”
“That’s the wrong answer, Pera.”
“Yes. I know it is, sir.”
A gust of wind sent thick smoke billowing down the street toward the hospital. They stepped apart to avoid choking. Ruso leaned on the wall beside the hoe, waiting for the air to clear.
“Let me tell you a better story,” he said through the smoke. “Tadius died as a result of a severe beating. There was a cover-up, which you cooperated with, because you were ordered to, but privately you were so outraged by what had happened that you recorded the truth. Then you hid it in the files, perhaps hoping to bring it out at Deva once you were safely clear of Eboracum.”
The breeze dropped almost as suddenly as it had risen. The buildings across the street began to reappear. Pera remained silent.
“Well?” Ruso squinted through the smoke.
The shape standing against the far wall was too big to be Pera. On either side of it stood two junior officers.
“Do us all a favor, Doctor,” said Geminus. “Leave the lad alone. He’s only doing what he’s told.”
Ruso felt his heartbeat quicken. He wanted to ask,
“And the drains, and the water supply,” said Geminus affably. “Can’t have the Sixth thinking we’re dirty.”
A section of the fire collapsed, sending out a fresh gust of smoke. Geminus stepped round it. His henchmen moved to reposition themselves on either side of him. “I hear you’ve been inviting young Austalis’s pals in to visit him.”
Ruso had hoped to be better prepared for this discussion. “Just one,” he said. “It’ll do him good to have a visitor.”
Geminus shook his head sadly, as if such ignorance was a disappointment to him. He gestured for Ruso to follow him. “You and I need to have a word,” he said. “In private.”
Chapter 23
When a centurion lived with female relatives, entering the house on the end of his barrack block was like visiting a family home where a couple of rooms were set aside for the work of keeping eighty legionaries in order. Geminus was a single man. The corridor was empty apart from scuff marks on the limewash. The office into which Ruso followed him bore no personal touches beyond the smell of dog and Geminus’s parade uniform with its white- crested helmet looming over them from a stand.
Geminus made a sign to a junior seated behind a plain desk, who hastily set down his abacus. His boots made a hollow sound across the floorboards as he went to join the two shadows outside.
Ruso heard the latch fall into place behind him and stifled the foolish thought that nobody could rescue him, because nobody knew where he was.
Geminus did not waste time with niceties like sitting down. From the middle of the room he said, “If you don’t like my orders, come and see me. Don’t cause trouble behind my back.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’ve enough to do here without being undermined by some smart-arse fresh out from Deva. You need to listen to your men. Austalis was on his own because if I give the recruits half a chance to get together and stir each other up, we’ll have a whole lot more trouble. And before you ask, I do know why he took a slice off his arm.”
Ruso swallowed. Austalis might have been cheered by the visit, but Geminus had a point: Marcus had certainly been stirred up. Still, there was a principle at stake. “Where I come from,” he said, “the medics decide what goes on in the hospital.” If they were lucky.
Geminus appeared ummoved.
“I had a morning’s work lined up for Pera, and instead he went off looking at drains.”
“I was trying to keep him away from you.” The gray eyes traveled slowly over Ruso, who was reminded of times when he had been summoned to his father’s study. Geminus gave a “Hm,” as if he had just reached a decision. He reached for a stool and nodded toward another. “I was hoping to keep you out of all this, but now that you’ve insisted on poking your nose in, you’ll have to know too.”
Ruso sat. He felt as though he had shrunk since he entered the room.
Geminus let out a long breath and began. “You want to know what happened to Tadius.”
“What people are saying doesn’t make sense.”
“What’s it to do with you?”
“I’m concerned about what’s happening to the men.”
“And you think the rest of us aren’t.”
Ruso shifted position on the stool. “You didn’t seem keen to defend them at dinner last night.”
Geminus grunted. “You saw what they did to Tadius.”
Ruso stared at him. “Tadius was killed by the other recruits?”
“Who did you think it was? Me?”
The question hung between them, unanswered.
“There was some native festival a few nights back. I forget what; you’ll have to ask your wife.”
Ruso did not ask how Geminus knew about his wife.
“A bunch of my lads take it into their heads to play this tribal hunting game. They name one man as the stag and then they chase him all over the fort. Things get out of hand. I get there with Dexter and a couple of my men and find the stag dying from a beating in a back street and the rest running away in the dark.”
He paused, perhaps to let Ruso imagine the scene.
“There could have been fifteen or twenty of them; we could only pick out two. One was a lad called Victor. We think he hid out somewhere and then went over the wall.”
“Ginger hair?”
“Silly bugger should have worn a hood if he wanted to get up to mischief.”
“I ran into him just outside Calcaria,” admitted Ruso. “He escaped into the woods.”
“Did you report it?”
Ruso said truthfully, “I didn’t realize he was one of yours.”
“The other one was Sulio.”
So that was why Dexter had not cared whether he jumped.
“And now you’re wondering why I haven’t chained the rest of them up and flogged the truth out of them.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“And then what?”
Ruso scratched one ear thoughtfully.
“I can’t kick that many men out of the Legion without authority from higher up.”
“Can’t they be tried at Deva?”
“We’ve got to get them there first. Five days’ march at least. Do your arithmetic, Doctor. Forty-seven Brits, fit young lads who’ve just had a bloody good training in the use of weapons. Then count the men we can rely on if they turn ugly and divide it by four, because the auxiliaries are staying here and a lot of the maintenance crews are going north in a day or two to help with the wall. Between you and me, they’re a bunch of lazy lard-arses anyway. Whatever happens, there’ll be plenty of stitching practice for your boys afterward.”
