Medicus

48

By the fourth morning of her stay with the medicus, Tilla had begun to wonder if he lived this way by choice. She had the floors of the usable rooms clear, the mess stacked up in the driest part of the empty room, and the mice in retreat. She had found the best snack shop in Deva, and slipped into Merula's for a quick lesson with the cook while both doormen were out escorting the girls to the baths. Her repertoire was not extensive, but it was edible. Omelette. Poached salmon. Sausages. Boiled cabbage. Porridge. Stewed pears. Baked apples with honey drizzled into the space where the core had been. Yesterday, after the rain had stopped, she had shoved all the dirty clothes in the house into a bag and lugged them out along the Eboracum road to the laundry. Then, feeling she deserved a rest, she and the dog had finished off the beer stored in the dining room. It had been kept too long anyway-but even this the medicus did not appear to notice. He seemed to have no interest in anything beyond eating, working, and sleeping.

Asked what the names of the dogs were, he looked as if he had never thought of that before. They had no names, he said. The bitch belonged to the man who had lived in the house before his colleague. She said, "The pups are old enough to leave," but all he said was, "Good," as if he hoped they would go off and find new homes by themselves.

When he was at home-which was not often-he ate, and then retreated to his room, or sat hunched on the couch scraping rows of figures into a writing tablet, pausing to add the numbers up with a frown that deepened the crease between his eyebrows. Last night he had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. His chin was growing darker each day. It was another thing he did not appear to notice.

As far as Tilla could tell the medicus did not have a woman, but her fears that she would be expected to fill the space had been unfounded. He had made no approach. Maybe he did not like women. Maybe, like many doctors, he was Greek. Everyone knew about the Greeks. But in the past she had caught him looking at her in a way that was not at all Greek. Perhaps he was just too busy. Whatever the reason, she was glad of it. The goddess was watching over her.

She finished laying the kindling in the kitchen hearth. She dampened the grubby bandage around her right hand-she had no wish to set herself aflame-unwrapped the fire steel and prayed for success before settling the dry fragments of scorched lint in the middle of the tinder and bringing the steel down onto the flint. For the first time since she had been forced to do this left-handed, one of the sparks caught straight away. Breathing gently on the glowing edges of the lint, she prayed again for what she was about to do.

She had wondered many times why she had been saved. Visiting Merula's this morning, she had found out. There were now eleven days before her arm would be freed from the splints, so ten days more in the service of the medicus. Ten days in which to perform the new task the goddess had given her.

Tilla fed the tiny fire with dried grass and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling.