Medicus

36

The tunic was a pleasing color. Blue suited her. Rianorix from the next valley had told her so. Of course she had ignored him and walked on, because she could do better for herself than an apprentice basket maker and because the last time she had smiled at a compliment, the giver had burst out laughing and demanded payment from his friends. Her response had won him his bet. But Rianorix's words had stayed with her. "Blue is a good color for you, daughter of Lugh."

So when the woman they called Merula had held up three colors against her this morning and chosen the blue one, she was not surprised. The fabric was a coarser weave than anything she would have worn at home, and it had reached the patched stage at which she would normally have handed it on to one of the servants. But it was infinitely better than the scratchy rust red army tunic that was wide in all the wrong places and much too short, and in which she had always felt like a curious exhibit in a cage.

Tilla blew out the candle and lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes. It was the will of the goddess that she should escape: She saw that now. Her prayer was answered. People were being sent to help her. Merula had provided clothes. And now the medicus had told her the splints could come off in twenty days. In her own mind, in the plan he knew nothing about, that gave her eighteen days to find a good pair of shoes and a cloak with a hood to cover her hair. On the nineteenth day she would slip out, release her arm from the bandages, and walk away, just another pedestrian in the street, while the man who thought he owned her would be searching for a woman wearing a sling.

She had wondered where she would go, but today the outraged girl in the awful yellow and blue check had provided her the answer.

Before the medicus had interrupted and insisted on asking his own questions, Tilla had learned with very little prompting that not everyone around here was as progressive as this girl with her soldier boyfriend. Even some of the girl's own family were still trying to pretend the legion would go away if they ignored it. Whereas, although the signaler was a Briton by birth, he had chosen to join up and make something of himself. No man born a Roman citizen could have served the emperor with more dedication-and now the army had betrayed him.

Privately Tilla thought the girl should have known better than to involve herself with anyone from the Catuvellauni, a tribe who would sell their own grandmothers if the price was right. Nor was she interested in the woes of the boyfriend, who had probably done something he should be ashamed of to become a Roman citizen in the first place. What interested her was that the girl's family lived less than half a day's walk from here, and apparently they were not sympathetic to the army. She had her first destination.

She would have to be careful, though. There were few people in these streets who would recognize her, but she must make sure she did not run into the medicus who thought he owned her, or his goocUook-ing friend who was in love with himself, or, worst of all, the hideous Claudius Innocens. In the meantime, she must use her time here to watch and learn. She must find out how Asellina and Saufeia had managed to elude the men who guarded the doors. After that, she would be on her own. And in order to give herself the best possible chance, she needed to find out whether anyone here really did know what had happened to Saufeia.