Medicus

25

A small informal dinner, as arranged by the wife of Centurion Rutilius, was one where Ruso was required to make conversation with seven people he didn't know plus one he'd seen too much of, while eating a selection of elaborate dishes that bore little or no resemblance to their stated ingredients.

He had been introduced to his fellow guests and promptly forgotten most of their names. This was a situation he was hoping to salvage by not speaking unless spoken to. He would ask Valens afterward. Valens would know what everyone was called, particularly the two daughters of their host. Obviously they were both Rutilia something, but Ruso was damned if he could remember what. The younger one wasn't supposed to be there anyway: She had been summoned at the last minute when the second spear, who turned out to be her uncle, arrived alone. Apparently his daughter had a bad head cold and wouldn't be coming after all.

Valens, who might conceivably have been disappointed at this news, seemed to accept it stoically enough when etiquette now demanded a rearrangement of the seating plan and he found himself lounging between the plump and giggly wife of another centurion and the elder Rutilia, who must have been of marriageable age.

Ruso took another spoonful of something soft and eggy and wondered how long it would be before Valens offered the second spear's daughter a house call. Around him, his fellow diners were finding ways of informing one another that they thought Hadrian would make a fine emperor, largely because nobody was yet drunk enough to dare say anything else. It was an example of the meaningless conversation that, as Ruso had once tried to explain to Claudia, was one of the reasons he could not see the point of dinner parties.

"What's wrong with people being nice? I suppose you'd rather stay at home and be grumpy?"

"I'm not grumpy. I'm busy."

"Well, just because you're busy, why do I have to stay at home by myself and be miserable?"

Claudia's parents, Ruso felt, had done their daughter a serious disservice. It was clear that they had never introduced her, either by education or example, to the words "obedience" and "duty."

His hosts were going to have similar problems with the other Rutilia, who was not much younger than her sister, if they were not careful.

While the plump wife moved on from praising the emperor to admiring the catering and the decor of the dining room, Rutilia the Younger was beckoning the wine jug over for the third time. The slave, who should have had the sense to refuse, didn't.

Ruso licked meat sauce off his fingers and realized his hostess was speaking to him. "I'm sorry, you said…?"

"I said, are you enjoying our venison gravy, Doctor?"

He nodded. "Excellent." (So that was what it was.)

"I'll have the recipe sent over."

He thanked her, wondering what sort of sauce would be produced by two medics who between them could barely boil an egg. Across the table, Valens caught his eye and grinned.

The plump woman, casually propping one hand under her jaw to disguise her chins, leaned forward and peered at Ruso. He was diagnosing short sight as she said, "So, how long have you been in Britannia, doctor?"

"Two weeks," replied Ruso.

The woman appeared to be waiting for more. He felt there was something else he should add to this reply to pad it out a little, but since he had fully answered the question he could not think what the something might be. This was another reason why he disliked dinner parties.

Claudia would insist that attending them was for his own benefit ("You must put yourself forward, Gaius! How will you advance if you never meet the right people?"), but afterward she would complain about his refusal to chatter mindlessly to the right people when he met them. It had just struck him that he could pass the baton by asking this woman the same question back, when she gave up waiting and asked, "And what do you think of it?"

He hesitated. Britannia was dilapidated, primitive, and damp, but some of these men might have chosen to serve here. "It's interesting," he said.

"Our mother doesn't think it's interesting," piped up a young voice from across the table. "Our mother says it's the Back of Beyond."

"Rutilia Paula!" The woman frowned at her daughter across the top of the tureen. Her earrings glittered in the lamplight as she turned to Ruso. "And what do you make of the natives, Doctor?"

"I haven't met many yet," said Ruso, omitting the fact that he owned one of them.

"Are you married?" inquired Rutilia Paula.

"Divorced," replied Ruso as one of Rutilia the Elder's sandals gave her little sister a hefty kick and her mother reinforced the message with, "Paula, dear, really!"

The mother turned back to Ruso. "I'm so sorry, Doctor. You were saying?"

Ruso shook his head. "I'd finished."

Rutilia Paula, evidently encouraged by this response, said, "Is it true you came from Africa and all your things were eaten by ants and now you're very poor?"

Her mother said loudly, "They're not very interesting, I'm afraid."

"Terribly primitive and superstitious," put in the woman with the chins. "They put their enemies inside great big men made of sticks and burn them alive, you know."

"Not now they don't," pointed out her husband. "We've put a stop to all that sort of carrying-on."

"I certainly hope so," replied the wife.

"Now they're just bloody argumentative," put in her husband. "Half the trouble we get is trying to stop them fighting each other."

"They don't want to pay the taxes," put in Rutilius, "but they expect us to turn up when there's trouble."

Ruso deduced that they were talking about the natives. "Is there much trouble?" he asked.

"The lowland tribes don't give us much these days," said the second spear, "but the higher the mountains, they worse they get."

"And they are so terribly dirty."

To Ruso's relief the mention of dirt turned the conversation to the vexed question of who was responsible for the slow completion of the work on the fort bathhouse. As the finger of blame moved around the fort and beyond, Valens remarked to their hostess how nice it was to meet someone socially who wasn't in the medical profession. "Most people think we're either going to poison them or slice them up," he explained, "So we end up just socializing with one another." He glanced at Ruso. "Except those of us who don't socialize with anybody, of course."

"You're another of these medical fellers, then?" inquired the second spear, eyeing Valens through the steam rising from a roast bird (duck? large hen? small goose? It had been announced on arrival, but Ruso had been distracted by the sight of Rutilia the Elder clamping her hand across the top of her sister's wineglass until the water jug appeared).

"I am," Valens was saying. "I was wondering-"

"Never believed in doctors, myself," said the second spear. "Bunch of squabbling buffoons."

Valens shook his head sadly as if in total agreement. "It's not a well-regulated profession, I'm afraid."

"Bloody right," agreed the second spear. "Killed my father. Only had a bit of a cough. Could have lived to be eighty. That lot started at him with the blood-cupping and the silly diets and shoving stuff up his backside, and he was dead within the week."

The younger Rutilia started to giggle.

"Very unfortunate," said Valens.

"That's what they said too."

Their hostess stepped in. "Marcus, Doctor Valens was marvelous to Aulus when he was ill. Wasn't he, Aulus?"

Aulus Rutilius grunted assent.

"We were lucky to get him and Doctor Ruso here tonight. They work very hard at that hospital."

"It'll be easier when we get the CMO back," said Ruso.

The plump woman looked puzzled. "The chief medical officer,"

Valens explained. "He's on long-term sick leave."

There was a "Hmph" from the second spear as Valens added, "Frankly, he's not likely to come back," and Rutilia Paula could be heard whispering to her sister, "Was that the hairy old man with cold hands?"

"Shut up!" hissed the sister.

As Rutilius beckoned a sharp-faced slave and murmured something in her ear, the plump woman said, "I'm sure one of you doctors would make a lovely chief medical officer."

Valens grinned at Ruso. "One of us would," he agreed. He gestured toward the bird. "This duck is excellent," he said. "Which reminds me, does anyone know somebody wanting to hire out a good cook?"

Neither of the ladies could suggest anyone. "It is terribly hard to get good staff here," sympathized the wife with the chins.

"This is the best meal we've had in ages," said Valens. "When we're off duty we tend to eat out, but you never know what you're getting when you eat in public bars. The other day I was nearly killed by a dish of oysters."

Encouraged by the interest this aroused, Valens went on to explain the effect of the oysters in the sort of detail that demonstrated another reason why people didn't socialize with doctors. Ruso took a long drink of well-watered wine. He was praying for a medical emergency that would require his immediate presence when he heard Paula suggest, "Perhaps they used poisoned oysters to murder that girl in the river."

Rutilia shot his wife a look as the sister retorted, "Don't be silly. She was strangled."

Before anyone could reply, the wife said brightly, "Girls! It has been lovely to have you dining with us but unfortunately-"

"Is it true she was bald?"

"— it's time for bed," continued her mother, gesturing toward the slave. "Atia will take you to your room."

The sharp-faced woman stepped forward and Ruso heard the elder girl hiss to her sister, "Now look what you've done!"

"Lovely girls!" enthused the woman with the chins after they had been ushered out of the room.

"Huh," grunted their father. "Need some discipline." He turned to Ruso. "Sorry about Rutilia Paula. I'll be having words with her."

There was a pause and Ruso realized he should say something. "Your daughter is…" he began, "she's, ah-very, ah…" The woman with the chins emitted a burp. A servant reached forward and removed an empty dish. "She's actually quite funny," he said.

The man scowled. "I'm not raising a comedian: She needs to learn to behave herself." He turned to his wife. "How did she get hold of that business about the murder?"

The earrings swayed and sparkled as she shook her head. "This is a very small place, dear. People talk."

"It's nothing for you ladies to go worrying about," put in the second spear. "Just a runaway barmaid."

"I wouldn't be surprised if it was her own people," said the woman with the chins, "They have some very odd ideas here, you know." She leaned closer to Ruso and her voice dropped to a loud whisper. "I didn't like to mention it with the girls here, but some of them share their wives."

"Really?" said Ruso. "Who with?"

The woman gave an alarming giggle that suggested she thought he was flirting with her. "Each other, of course."

Ruso, sensing that some reaction was needed, said, "Glad I'm not a native."

"Some of them," she continued, "don't like the girls mixing with our men. You see, the truth is, Doctor, our men are a much better prospect than theirs." She turned to her husband. "Aren't they, dear?"

"Much."

"Our men have education and training and discipline, you see. Not that theirs couldn't join the auxiliaries if they wanted to, but most of them are too lazy to work their way up. I suspect she was strangled by a jealous native."

Ruso scratched his ear. The idea that Saufeia had been killed because the locals were jealous of the army's suave sophistication was something he had not considered.

Their hostess leaned forward. "Wasn't there another girl from a bar who went missing?"

"It was the same bar," put in Valens.

"Really?" demanded the woman with the chins. "The same bar?

Perhaps there's a madman lurking there, pretending to be a customer!"

"Must be mad if he goes to the bother of getting them out past the doormen," put in her husband.

"Perhaps he is one of the doormen. You never can tell with those types."

The man ignored her. "If he wants to murder women why doesn't he just snatch 'em off the street?"

Their hostess looked alarmed. "We make sure our girls never, ever go out without a chaperone."

"We're not talking about daughters of decent families," pointed out the second spear. "And the bar's just having a run of bad luck. The owner reckons the first one eloped with a sailor."

The woman with the chins assured the second spear that he was bound to catch the murderer soon.

He took a sip of wine and said, "We'll see. Trouble is, nobody's got time to turn the place upside down looking for him. It's not as if the girl was anybody important."

"Not to us, perhaps." The words were out before Ruso had thought about them. Suddenly he was aware of a silence and the eyes of everyone around the table were trained on him. "What I mean is," he continued, realizing this apparent questioning of the second spear's judgment was just the sort of thing that would have annoyed Claudia, "she must have been important to somebody, once. She had some education."

Valens grinned. "Ruso's been making inquiries."

"Really?" The eyes above the chins were wide.

"No," he said, glaring at Valens, who had now managed to imply that he didn't trust the second spear to investigate properly. "I just happened to pick it up in conversation."

"Well, you have to expect these things from time to time," observed the husband of the woman with the chins. "We've got three or four thousand men stationed here at the moment. We don't pick them to be country gentlemen."

"What a very sad end," murmured their hostess. "The doctor's right.

Somebody must have cared about her."

"Somebody ought to ask the servants what happened to her," ventured the plump woman, dabbling her fingers in the bowl held by a patient slave and drying them on the towel over his arm. "Servants always know everything, you know. It's amazing."

As Ruso dipped his hands into the warm water, he glanced at the face of the slave holding the bowl. The man's expression gave nothing away.