Medicus

46

The bedroom door was wide open but she sidled in, singing softly to keep her courage up. Her eyes scanned the floor as she moved forward with the broom held out in front of her. Satisfied that the floor was clear, she ran clumsily in the medicus's big boots, twisted around, and landed on the bed with her feet in the air, the boots still on. Then she laid the boots and the broom on the bed and crawled around the mattress on her knees, bending to check that none of the covers were hanging down. Finally safe, she turned to the dog standing in the doorway, and said, "Are you ready?"

The medicus had told her to sleep in this room last night. It was the room of the other doctor, the friendly one, who had gone away. She had not slept well. To begin with she had lain rigid in the dark, listening for the sound of the medicus coming home and wondering if he would bed her, because he was a man, or beat her, because she was not a cook, or both.

Instead of the medicus's footsteps she had heard a faint pattering that she tried to tell herself was the sound of her own fear. As soon as she moved, it stopped. As she was drifting off to sleep, it began again. Then it squeaked. Fear might patter, but it did not squeak. So she had to keep listening, moving at short intervals, rolling over, kicking her legs or sighing, hearing the trumpet blowing the watches just as she had on bad nights in the hospital and trying to reason with herself that all houses had mice. No one died because of mice. She had grown up in a house where mice crept through crevices in the walls and nested in the thatch. At night she had heard them rustling the bracken on the floor, and she had gone to sleep with the blanket over her head, knowing that Bran would protect her. But Bran was dead, and the dog in this house was not as fast. Even the Romans, with all their organization, could not control mice.

It was past the middle hour of the night when the medicus came home. She watched a bright line appear and fade around the door as he carried the lamp into the kitchen. He did not spend long there. As soon as she heard his bedroom door scrape across the floor, she counted to ten, flapped the blankets to frighten the mice into their holes, and fled on tiptoe to the dining room, where the dog-after some shoving on both sides-had finally assented to sharing the couch. She had lain beside it, pondering the strangeness of Romans.

When she had first been carried into this house-before he had taken her to Merula's-she had been too weak to observe much beyond that the place smelled bad and looked cluttered. She had assumed that the servant was lazy, or away, or perhaps ill. It had come as a surprise to find that there was no servant except herself. It seemed that despite being surrounded by all this wealth, Roman doctors lived in poverty.

A healer among her own people would be better treated. Her mother was given gifts. Eggs or a hen. A pot of honey. A shawl. A goat. A mirror and comb set. Beer. Once, when she had safely delivered a son to an elder whose wife had been in labor for three days, a pregnant cow. They had lived well. They had a cook and a herdsman. Even when the harvests had failed, she could count on one hand the number of times the family had gone hungry. Whereas this medicus, with all his skill and authority, lived in a vermin-infested ruin and was reduced to bargaining for an injured slave in a back street. Small wonder that Romans had no respect for different tribes. They still had to learn respect for one another.

She must have fallen asleep on the couch, because the next thing she could remember was the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. She rose to find the medicus helping himself to the bread rolls she had bought for breakfast.

"That soup," he said, without looking up.

She swallowed. "Is-good?"

"Is that the sort of thing you eat over here?"

"Britannia cooking, Master," she ventured.

"Gods above. With that and the weather, I wonder you people have the will to live." He had given her more coins and said, "I haven't got time to go into it now. Get something from a shop for supper. Not a British shop. Understood?" When he left he was clutching his case in one hand and an apple in the other.

Now she was back in the bedroom, determined not to pass another night like the last one. She had already used the broom handle to pull out the clothes that had been thrown under the bed. She had found among them a dish with greasy remains bearing small teethmarks and two cups with fluffy green pillows growing inside them. Now, from the safety of the bed, she bent and jabbed the broom at what looked like an old linen saddlecloth stored underneath the cupboard in the corner. Nothing happened. She pushed the broom farther in and began to slide the saddlecloth sideways, out from between the legs of the cupboard. The dog moved forward to sniff at it. A couple of puppies wandered in to see what was happening. The linen, once red and now faded at the folds to orange, was gathering a rising tide of gray fluff and little black mouse droppings around its leading edge as it moved.

How could anyone live like this? Once she had cleared this last corner, she would give all the floors a good sweep and block all the holes where the boards had warped or knots had fallen out or the mice had gnawed their way in.

She pulled the broom out from under the cupboard, repositioned it on the folded fabric that had emerged, and began to push sideways again. The fabric strained but did not move. It was snagged on the base of the cupboard. She crawled farther up the bed and poked at it from a better angle, putting more of her weight behind the stick. Soon there would be no hiding places left. Tonight, if she brought the dog in and sealed the gap under the door, she might be able to get a better night's-

It was so fast she barely saw it. As the dog shot under the bed in pursuit, the broom jerked in her hand and the fabric pulled clear. Tiny gray shapes leaped out of a tangled nest and scattered in all directions. The broom clattered to the floor. Puppies yelped and skidded. Tilla clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream.

The narrow lane was empty. Tilla twisted the key in the lock and tested the door. Shut. She was safe now. Out of that horrible house. Before long, her heart would stop pounding and her breath would calm down.

Out here, the sun was shining and a fresh breeze brought the smell of the tide over the wall of the fort. A gull wheeled overhead, screaming. Somewhere in the distance was the clang of a blacksmith at work. She tied the key on to her belt like a proper housekeeper, picked up the empty shopping basket, and hooked it over her injured arm. Then she slid the loop of the dog lead down from where she had secured it in the crook of her elbow. Grasping the lead firmly in her hand, she drew in a deep breath of the clean air and looked around her.

The house was set on its own at the end of a long open space that separated the hospital and the next barracks block. In the space, nettles had sprouted through what looked like the angular footprints of vanished buildings. The nettles might be useful, although it was late in the season now. Thistles, groundsel, dandelions, and scattered tufts of broad-bladed grass had poked through the black of an old bonfire patch. In the middle of the graveled alley that led past the front door was another scorched area. It seemed an odd place for a bonfire. She supposed it had something to do with the smoke stains and the burned smell in the medicus's house.

The lead pulled against her hand. The dog strained toward the open area and promptly squatted to add its own contribution to the collection of droppings dotting the ground. Tilla wrinkled her nose and decided not to bother gathering the nettles.

To her right, at the end of the alleyway, a wide street paved in stone ran parallel to the high outer wall of the fort. A crow, suddenly alarmed, opened its wings and flapped away from the top of the wall. Two sentries appeared, walking along a high path set behind the top rows of stones. They passed without showing any sign of noticing her.

It struck her that she was the only person in her family who had ever been welcomed behind the walls of a Roman fort. The thought of the gate pass in the leather purse strung on her belt made her feel uneasy. It was not an honorable thing to be trusted by the legions. Throats had been cut for less. And yet, the medicus had made it so easy for her to escape! It must be the work of the goddess, who was more powerful than the gods of the Romans, even though she had hidden her face from her people for such a long time. The goddess was helping her to escape. Chloe had finally told her what little the girls knew about the loss of Saufeia. Tilla had not made the same mistakes. As for what had happened to Asellina: That was a mystery. But the goddess must know. The goddess would protect her.

Tilla pursed her lips and allowed herself a moment of pity for the medicus, powerless before the will of the one who had chosen to answer her prayers. The medicus had treated her well. She would serve him as best she could in the few days she had left here. She would do what she could to cheer up that dreadful house. In the meantime, she would find out how to cook something.