Medicus

63

Once he had passed the cemetery, Ruso urged the borrowed horse into a canter. It was a broad-backed beast, recently retired as the mount of a tribune, who, according to the groom, was not the steadiest of horsemen. It was mild-tempered, comfortable, and too staid to be in great demand. It was the ideal horse for a man who needed an animal that could carry an extra rider.

He slowed it to a trot to pass a string of heavy carts, then wove around a road gang and a couple of mounted men leading a string of shaggy ponies. A local family was heading into town carrying baskets of vegetables. Half a dozen legionaries were heaving against the tilted side of a vehicle that had one wheel in the ditch, evidently determined to right it without unloading it first. A couple of them glanced hopefully up at him, realized he was an officer, and bent back to their task.

Farther out, the traffic grew lighter. Sheep were grazing beside the road, watched over by a small boy with a large stick. Ruso concentrated on the opposite shoulder, looking out for the path that led across to the woods.

The horse seemed surprised at being asked to jump the ditch-evidently the tribune had demanded very little of it-but it landed on the other side in a reasonably tidy fashion. A couple of birds flew up from the trees in alarm as it approached. Apart from birds, the woods appeared to be deserted. The horse slowly picked its way forward along the narrow path, apparently unperturbed by its rider's occasional lurch forward to lie along its neck as they passed under overhanging branches.

There was no smell of smoke among the trees: only that of damp earth and rotting leaves. A better tracker than Ruso would have known whether anyone had passed this way recently. Unable to read the signs, he concentrated on making his way safely through the undergrowth and strained to catch any sounds beyond the brush of leaves, the creak of the saddle, and the warble of distant birdsong.

He emerged from the woods picking twigs out of his hair and circled the horse around the clearing, trying to look into the trees and over the bracken to the muddy patch where the spring originated. There was no sign of her.

"Tilla!"

His shout died away into silence. The birdsong had stopped.

"Tilla! Can you hear me?"

He tried several times, twisting in the saddle to call in different directions, waiting each time for a response that did not come.

He swung down off the horse and left it to graze while he pushed his way through the bracken to the spring. The remains of a small fire lay in the grass, sodden and cold. The fire could have been lit on her last visit or last night: He had no way of knowing. What was certain was that it had not been active this morning.

Ruso got to his feet, took a deep breath, and shouted, "Tilla! Where are you?" one last time.

He turned to face the spring. He raised one hand in the air as he had seen his servant do. Glad that no one but the horse could hear him, he offered a prayer to the goddess of the spring, asking her to keep safe her faithful servant whose name was… he pulled the document from his tunic and read out, "Dar… lugh… dach… a," and then added, "but who is known to me as Tilla."

His approach to the native houses was announced by several excited dogs. As he drew closer, chickens scuttled to safety under a gate on which a small boy sat staring with his mouth open. A couple of squawking geese made experimental runs at the horse. It flattened its ears but plodded forward.

Ruso dismounted and led the horse toward the gate. The boy scram bled down the other side of the gate and fled into the houses. Women appeared in the doorways. An old man emerged from behind a haystack and shouted an order. The dogs, which to Ruso's relief were tethered, fell silent.

When he turned after fastening the gate, the occupants of the houses had all gathered in a silent line. Several women had their arms folded. One, white up to the elbows with flour, rested a reassuring hand on the head of the small boy, who was now hiding behind her skirts. To the right of the people, swinging gently in the morning breeze, Ruso saw the reason why the dogs were tied up. The carcass of a freshly slaughtered sheep dangled, still dripping, over a tub of thick blood. As the natives stared at him in silence it struck him that the outer skin of civilization was very thin here. He had no doubt that not so very long ago, these people would have slaughtered him with as little compunction as they had killed the sheep, and cheerfully nailed his severed head to the gatepost.

Surveying the eight pairs of eyes watching his every move, he wondered where the men and the rest of the children were. The girl whose appearance had distracted the First Century on its training run was nowhere to be seen. There must be people still hiding in the houses. He wondered if he should have unlatched the safety strap on his knife. He wondered if he could vault onto the horse before they reached him. He wondered whether the horse could clear the gate. Then he began.

"My name," he announced, "is Gaius Petreius Ruso, Medicus with the Twentieth Legion. I have come here to look for a woman." He stopped. It was, he realized, an unfortunate start. Worse, his audience showed no sign of understanding it. Faced with impassive stares, he asked, "Does anyone here speak Latin?"

The small boy blinked. There was no other response.

"I am looking for the woman who is my servant," he said, pulling out the sale document. "Her name is…" He read out the complicated name again, suspecting that he was pronouncing it all wrong. "She is missing. She has curly fair hair"-with a twirling motion he indicated his own, which was indeed hair, but entirely the wrong color-"and her arm is-" He made a chopping motion with his left hand on his lower right arm, and then mimed winding a bandage around it. "Her arm is broken." Although by now they probably thought he was threatening to chop it off. "I want her to know that if she comes home she will not be punished." Even though, he wanted to add, she very much deserves it.

He cleared his throat. "I am anxious to know that she is safe," he said.

A cockerel strutted across the mud that separated him from his audience. The small boy tried to stuff a fistful of his mother's skirt into his mouth. Without taking her eyes off Ruso, the woman crouched and gathered the child into her floury arms.

"I want to know that she is safe," Ruso repeated. He surveyed the blank faces. "If I had any money," he continued, "I would be offering a reward. But I don't, so I can't. And if I thought any of you understood a word I was saying, I would tell you that even if I can't find Tilla, I'd like to find out what the condition is underneath that splint. I'd like to find out because I want to know whether there's anything I've done since I came to your miserable country that has made it worth the bother of coming here. So. There you are. Well, thank you all for being so tremendously helpful."

As he tramped out through the mud in the gateway-he was not going to pick his way around the edge as if a Roman officer were afraid of getting dirty-the dogs began to bark again. This time no one tried to stop them. A few yards beyond the gate he looked over his shoulder.

They were still watching.