Medicus

79

Ruso trod heavily down the moonlit street, his stomach full of stew and his mind full of dark thoughts. He had lingered as long as he could over the meal and consumed the entire jug of Chloe's fake Falernian, but he had not taken up the offer of a girl. Even a desperate man had to have standards.

A family emerged from a side street and turned on to the road ahead of him. A child who should have been in bed at this hour was perched on its father's shoulders. The mother had a baby cradled against her hip. They seemed to be hurrying somewhere. Moments later they turned off to the right and disappeared.

Ruso walked on, in no particular direction. A rat scurried across the street in front of him and vanished into an alley that smelled of sewage. Even the rats had somewhere to go and something to do. Whereas he was facing another evening sitting in a cold house with only the dogs and the ashes of his failed work for company.

A man needed a family, Ruso decided. Or a religion. Something to cling to. His own family were far away and as for religion-he was not sure that he and Aesculapius were on good terms at the moment. Especially if the god had found out that his fund had been short-changed to help a small farm in Gaul out of debt.

A man needed a family or a religion. He felt a long way from both. He was thinking about her again. He was thinking that he should have given her instructions about keeping in touch. She was still, technically, his property. But it was obvious that after all that had happened to her in Deva she would not choose to stay here. He had only himself to blame.

He heard voices behind him and turned to see a group of five or six youths striding purposefully down the street. Their conversation was in British. He stepped aside. They passed him without seeming to notice he was there.

He supposed he could go to the hospital and do late ward rounds, but he was more than a little drunk and besides, it would only bring out more "Haven't you got a home to go to?" comments. He had discharged the last patient who had asked that, on the premise that anyone able to sit up in bed and make sarcastic remarks was well enough to be sent back to barracks in the morning.

Glancing up to see where he was-it would not be a good idea to wander down the Dock road at this hour-he was surprised to see the building ahead silhouetted against an orange sky. He drew in a sharp breath and paused to stare. Somewhere toward the distant cemetery, sparks were flying upward, fading to black specks, and floating down through the disturbed air. It was too big for a funeral pyre, and much too late at night. He was too far away to hear the shouting but he could see well enough. Somebody's house was on fire.

He had promised himself he would walk away from trouble, but this was different. Hurrying through the shadowed streets he overtook another family and was surprised to hear, " 'Evening, Doctor! Are you going where we're going?"

It was a moment before he recognized the barber, who seemed to be out for a stroll with his family.

"There's a fire," explained Ruso, wondering how they could have failed to notice.

"Looks good, don't it?" observed the barber. He fell in step with Ruso. "I wouldn't bother meself, but we'll never hear the last of it if we don't take the ma-in-law."

Ruso winced. For all they knew, people could be injured or dead.

Clearly the barber had been right to assess his mother-in-law as a mad old bitch. "We'd better hurry," he said.

"Oh, it'll go on for a bit yet," observed the barber. "Mind your step!"

He pushed Ruso to one side just in time to stop him from stepping in a pile of animal droppings. "Once that lot get going with the dancing and the stories you can be up till daylight." The man lifted his left hand to reveal the dark shape of a tankard, "Still, there's usually a good drop of beer to be had."

Ruso's legs carried on in the same direction while his head rearranged his assessment of where he was going. His suspicions were confirmed when the barber said, "One thing you can say for the locals, they know how to do a good bonfire."

Ruso said, "What are they celebrating?"

"The new year."

"But it's only the end of October!"

"Ah, to you and me and the rest of the empire, Doc, but the wife's family's new year is tomorrow. And tonight for one night only-this is according to the old bag, mind-the doors are open between the living and the dead."

"I see," said Ruso. They were closer to the fire now. He could hear faint strains of chanting and the wail of pipes, hopefully from the living. He wondered whether, miles away across the damp green hills of Britannia, Tilla was singing one of her interminable ancestor songs beside a bonfire of her own.

The crowd had gathered on a patch of empty land between the last houses and the cemetery. The size of the crowd surprised him, but the Twentieth had been here for many years now and he supposed most of their women would be local. People had gathered well back from the leaping flames of a colossal bonfire. Those closest to him were silhouettes and around the fire he could make out the pale shapes of faces. The flames lit up the movements of the musicians, who were standing on some sort of platform.

Around him, knots of people were wandering across the grass to where a couple of lamplit carts were serving food and'-judging by the numbers of men and women clutching cups-beer. He glanced back at the entrance to the lot and saw, as he had expected, a glint of moonlight on polished armor. The legionaries standing guard on each side of the gate would be the visible ones. He supposed others would be stationed farther back, discreetly positioned so as not to provoke trouble but ready to rush forward and quell it if it seemed to be starting without them. The chances of any trouble here, though, were minimal. Most of these people would have connections with the army. This, he thought, surveying the crowds, was just the sort of event Rome would approve. Happy natives enjoying a night out under the watchful eye of their benevolent imperial guardians. He wondered what the imperial guardians would do if the old woman was right, and the dead decided to walk back through the open door and join in.

The thought reminded him of something. He felt for his purse and fingered the coin inside. Then he strode across to join the line at the drinks stall.

Ruso disliked talking to people about death. They usually asked questions he didn't know the answers to. Wherever possible, he left that sort of thing to the priests. The priests didn't know the answers either, but they thought they did, which usually seemed to please grieving relatives. When there was no priest available, he would pull out some sort of platitude about the deceased having gone to a better place and being out of pain now. But had they? Were they? How could anyone know?

He had seen many people die, and he could still make no sense of it.

One moment the body was a person with a will and a future and a sense of humor and a liking for honeyed dates or goat cheese or other men's wives. Then-and the change could take a second, or hours, or days, but the end was always the same-the body was just a mass of flesh which had to be disposed of before it stank. And whatever anyone said about ghosts or open doors or crucified Judean carpenters, nobody had ever come back, so how could anyone say with any confidence that there was a better place-or any place at all?

He knelt, stretched out his hands, and let the cold dry earth run through his fingers. Plants had begun to grow on the grave. He assumed they were weeds, although in the moonlight it was impossible to tell. It had been difficult enough to make out the name burned along the wooden post that was hammered into the top of the grave as a marker, but finally he had picked out all the letters: SAUFEIA. Spelled correctly. One "f."

He had never met this young woman in life. He had only seen the battered and decaying husk of a body from which the soul was long gone. He owed her no duty beyond that of a doctor to a patient. He had more than fulfilled that duty. Yet still he felt guilty.

The people who buried Saufeia's ashes had not left a spout to connect the dead to the living, so he lifted the cup of wine he had bought from the stall-how Roman these people had become! — and held it at arm's length above the grave. He listened for a moment to the sounds of celebration drifting over from the bonfire. Then he began to tilt the cup until a thin stream of wine ran from it to soak into the soft earth. As it trickled into the ground he said quietly, "May you rest in peace, sister. May you enjoy a better life in the next world than you suffered in this one. May you forgive us all for not avenging you sooner, and…" He paused to clear his throat, "and may the dead be kind enough to forgive me for not telling the whole truth, because I have a duty to the living."

"Sometimes," murmured a girl's voice, "is good not to tell too much truth."

Ruso felt his whole body begin to shake. The night when the doors are open between the living and the dead… And yet it was the wrong voice. He knew that voice. He knew it very well indeed. Slowly, he lowered the cup onto the grave and was relieved to press his hands onto the solid earth. He told himself he was not losing his mind. He was simply confusing his memories: an understandable mistake brought on by the strange surroundings of the moonlit cemetery and too much free wine at the bar.

"Hail and farewell, Saufeia," he whispered, then scrambled hastily to his feet.

"Are you finish?" The words were spoken by a woman in native dress with a shawl pulled over her head.

He stared at her, squinting in the moonlight. "You aren't really here," he informed her. "I've had too much to drink. I am going to walk to the real world now, past next year and back into this one, and then I am going to bed, and when I wake up tomorrow morning you won't be there."

The girl eyed him solemnly and then said, "My Lord is afraid he is losing his mind."

"I'm not losing my mind," he insisted, "I'm drunk."

"My Lord is drunk," she agreed, "but I am here. She pushed back the shawl and held out one bare arm. "See?"

He rubbed his eyes and looked at the pale arm. Then he took it and turned it over, marveling at its straightness.

"I have seen you go to the bar," explained Tilla. "I wait outside for a very long time while you drink, and I follow you."

He had thought many times about what he would say to Tilla if he ever saw her again. He could not remember what he had decided. Instead, he found himself slipping back into the role of doctor. "The muscles in the arm will be weak," he heard himself telling her. "You must do exercises every day to build them up again. Clench your fist for me. Good. Do you have full movement in the hand?"

She gave a deep, throaty chuckle. "Now will you will ask me if my bowels are open today?"

He let go of the arm. "No. I'm sorry, Tilla, I-" He glanced around them at the deserted cemetery. "I can't believe you're here. I thought you were never coming back."

"The first time I meet you," she said, "I am thinking I wish to die. I want to go to the next world. You, with your bandages and your exercises and eat your dinner and have you use the pot yet, you keep me here."

Ruso scratched his ear. "I'm not sure about the next world," he said.

"That's why I prefer to keep people in this one, just in case."

"Then I find out that you want to sell me."

"That was a mistake," said Ruso. "I wasn't thinking straight."

"A mistake, yes."

"Did you bring the message about Phryne?"

"I send a boy to the gate. I have to find out what has happened to that Priscus man. To know if it is safe to come."

"I thought you would stay at home with your people."

She paused. "I think about you and the other good-looking doctor," she said. "In that terrible house."

"Valens is trying to engage a better one," said Ruso.

"My arm is mended," she said. "I am still in this world, and I have to thank you. If you sell me, you can get a better house. Then I will find a way to the next world and you will have money."

He stared at her. "You mean I sell you, I get lots of money, and if you don't like the new owner you kill yourself? What sort of an arrangement is that?"

"Is honorable."

"Is ridiculous. I told you, I don't believe in the next world. And I wouldn't dream of sending anyone to it so I can have a better house. That was never what I needed the money for." He hesitated. "If you really want to do something for me, come home."

She looked him up and down. "You have not shave. There are dark rings under your eyes." She placed a finger close to the pin on his chest.

"There is a hole in your cloak."

"I've been doing a lot of night duty."

The sound of cheering and laughter drifted over from the bonfire.

She said, "Will your better house have mice?"

He took a deep breath. "If you come back," he said, "you will not be sleeping with the mice. You will be sleeping with me."

Another burst of distant laughter broke the silence. He was beginning to think he had made a serious mistake when she reached forward, took his hand, and turned to address the grave.

"We must leave now, sister," she said. "We will pray for you. Watch over us in the new year from the next world."

They were almost back at the fort gates when Tilla said, "I must tell you some truth, my Lord. You could not sell me anyway"

"Why not?" said Ruso, happy to launch into an argument now that he was assured of her company. "I have the documents. You told me yourself that Innocens bought you in a legitimate sale."

There was a slight pause before she replied, "I told you he pay money for me."

"Exactly."

"The woman he pay is not the one who-"

"Stop!" ordered Ruso. "Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it. I'mtired of the truth. Just carry on the way you are, Tilla. That's an order."