Medicus

70

Tilla was singing quietly to herself. The sack of provisions swung and bumped against the small of her back with each step. Its weight was a pleasure. It meant independence. There was no one out here to give her orders or ask where she was going.

She was not entirely sure where she was going herself. After two years she had little idea whether anything was left of her home. Whatever she found, though, would be better than the place she had left: a place built by foreign warriors who fought not for honor but for money and hid their shame by bullying everyone else. In the end even the medicus had turned out to be little better than his companions. She had begun to think he could be trusted. She had even begun to grow fond of him. Now she realized what a fool she had been. The time she had spent with Sabrann had opened her eyes anew to the twisted thinking of the emperor's men and all those who served them. She was lucky to have escaped before she had been hopelessly corrupted like Merula, a woman who survived by trampling on others. Or Chloe, who had no vision of anything beyond the walls of the bar.

She wished she had been able to bring the child with her: the one they had called Phryne. When she reached home she would spread the word of what had happened to her. Perhaps the child's people would send warriors. Perhaps not. There were cowards among the Brigantes too. Elders who acted out of fear and called it being sensible, or abandoned their own ways and called it progress. The taint of Rome was like rot spreading through a crate of apples.

There was a dip in the road ahead. She could see the tops of wooden rails that must be the sides of a bridge. Beyond them, set well back-the Romans were afraid of ambushes, and always chopped down everything close to the road-stood a massive tree that was the right shape for an oak. That must be the marker for the track Sabrann had told her to follow.

As she looked, two cavalry horses appeared over the brow of the next rise. Tilla tugged the sack into a new position on her shoulder and kept an eye on the riders, who were progressing toward her at a leisurely trot. She slowed, not wanting to meet them on the narrow bridge.

It occurred to her that if she had a horse, she could make the journey far more easily. The weak arm would make it hard to mount, but once she was up, she would manage one-handed. She was a good rider. She had been allowed to ride her father's horses as a child. Perhaps someone would lend her a pony. Perhaps, if they wouldn't, she would wait until no one was looking and help herself.

She heard the clump of hoofbeats on the wooden bridge. She kept walking, head down, close to the shoulder so the horses would have plenty of room to pass.

Something inside the sack was poking into her back. As she shifted the weight the sack pulled at the fabric on her shoulder. She felt the gray hood slip backward. Quickly, she lifted her right hand to pull it forward again, but the cloth was caught under the weight of the sack and her weak arm did not have the strength to tug it free.

The horses were only about thirty paces away now. She turned to one side, swung the sack to the ground, and bent over, busying herself with adjusting the hood and pinning it back into place. She could hear the approaching crunch of hooves on the gravel. The men were talking to each other.

The hood was back in place. The horses were almost level with her now. She slid her right arm in under the cloak, realizing as she did so that two or three inches of grimy bandage had been poking out of the end of her sleeve.

The horses were next to her. The riders were still chatting as if they had noticed nothing. The bandage had probably looked like a glimpse of undertunic.

They had passed. She grabbed the neck of the sack and swung it back over her shoulder.

Behind her, the hooifbeats faltered and began to grow louder. The riders were coming back.

"Halt!"

Tilla froze.

"What's your name, girl?"

She turned, keeping her head bowed in a pretense of respect.

"Brica, sir."

"Brica, eh? What are you doing all the way out here, Brica?"

Tilla stared at the polished hooves of the front horse. "I go to visit my aunt, sir. She is sick."

The second rider moved around to take up a position beside her.

"What do you think?" said the first rider to him. "She look like a Brica to you?"

"Hm." There was a creak of leather as the second rider bent down from his saddle to examine her. "Chin up, girl."

Tilla lifted her head a fraction.

"You know what she looks like to me?" offered the first rider, circling his horse behind her and nudging her forward into the middle of the road. "She looks like 'Attractive female, age about 20.' "

"Slim, about five feet four inches," continued his companion as if they were quoting from something. "Hold out your arm, gorgeous."

Tilla slid the sack off her shoulder and held out her left arm.

"The other one."

Her left hand darted inside the cloak and tugged down the offending sleeve before she reached out her right arm. "If you touch me," she said, "my master will have you punish."

A sword swished out of its scabbard. A blade glinted in front of her.

Its tip plucked back the fabric of her sleeve, revealing the dirty linen bandage.

"I think you're the one who gets to be 'punish,' gorgeous." Both horses were circling her now. "We're the ones who get the reward."

Tilla let the sack fall, grabbed her skirts, and dodged through the gap between the two horses. Leaping across the ditch, she scrambled up onto the rough grass and raced toward the woods. If she could just get between the trees, she stood a chance…

Over the rasp of her own breath she heard cheering. Then the approach of hoofbeats. There was a horse cantering on either side of her now. She slowed: They slowed. She speeded up: They increased their pace. The men were laughing. Playing with her. She stopped dead, spun around, and ran back the other way, but it was hopeless. There was no cover ahead of her now: only the open road. The thud of hooves on turf surrounded her once more. The horses were crowding her. Hands reached down and flung her cloak back over her shoulders. "Now!" shouted one of the men. She ducked. Too late. They grabbed her under both arms and scooped her up with a swift, practiced movement. Legs flailing helplessly, boots brushing the tips of the grasses, she dangled between the two horsemen as their mounts cantered back to the road.