Ruso and the Root of All Evils

22

Tilla was moving along the track with small, deliberate steps, watching her feet as if she could not trust them to obey her. As she drew closer she stumbled. He called out to her. One hand rose to flap a faint response. Cursing his lame foot, he lurched towards her in the nearest thing he could manage to a run.

‘Tilla, what’s happened?’ He offered an arm for her to lean on. ‘You look terrible.’

When she lifted her head her face was white. ‘My lord, I lost your sisters.’

It was not only the weariness in her voice that told him she was almost at the end of her strength. He could not remember the last time she had called him ‘my lord’. He said, ‘You look dreadful. Has something happened?’

‘Are your sisters here?’

‘No.’ He interrupted her cry of despair with: ‘This is my fault. We had a crisis here and I forgot to send the cart. Have you walked all the way? Where’s your hat?’

She paused before replying, as if she was assessing whether it was worth using the energy. Finally she said, ‘The hat is lost too. My head is aching. I am sorry.’

He wanted to carry her. Instead he had to ask, ‘Can you make it to the house?’

‘Yes.’

Arria was hurrying towards them, calling, ‘Where are my girls? Gaius? Make her tell us what she’s done with them!’

‘Lost,’ Tilla whispered, ‘in the shop with the jewels. I turn around, they are gone. I look for them, then I go to the gate of Augustus, but it is past the seventh hour, and nobody is there. I think they are gone without me. But now they are not here.’

‘Gaius? Gaius! What’s she saying?’

‘She needs water, quickly. She’s exhausted.’

‘But where are my girls? I should never have let them persuade me to trust her!’

‘I forgot to send the cart,’ he explained, deciding half the truth would be enough for now. ‘Tilla’s walked all the way home in this heat to fetch it. She needs plenty of water to drink, and tell Cook I want a jug of vinegar and a mixing bowl.’

Arria bent to peer up into Tilla’s white face. ‘Oh dear. This one’s not going to die as well, is she?’

‘Of course not,’ Ruso assured her, stifling a momentary panic at the memory of being unable to help Severus. ‘I know what I’m treating this time.’

Tilla was propped up on his pillows, wearing nothing but a cool sheet to preserve her dignity and a cold compress on her forehead. ‘Drink some more,’ he ordered, putting the cup in her hand and turning back to carry on pounding unguent of roses into a measure of vinegar.

‘I am well,’ she insisted, although her voice was barely stronger than her pulse had been. ‘You must find your sisters.’

‘Marcia and Flora can wait,’ he said, tipping more vinegar into the bowl and mixing it in. ‘Keep drinking.’ He was not going to leave her until he was happy that she was recovering. This was his fault in more ways than one. He should have sent that cart and he should have thought to warn her. In a town with a fine supply gushing from the street fountains, it had never occurred to him that Tilla might not stop for more than a couple of sips of water all through a hot morning. He had seen enough cases like this in his first post with the Army, when men marching under the African sun had run short of water. It began with heat and over-exertion and dehydration and, if it was not treated, it ended very badly indeed.

He dipped the sponge in the mixture and began to wipe it down her neck, across her shoulder and along one arm.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Vinegar?’

‘In the Army they used to complain about the roses.’ He turned the compress over and stepped round the bed to sponge down the other side. ‘Any dizziness, nausea, stomach cramps?’

‘Just the headache, and I am very tired. Please. Go and look for the sisters. This is not a good way for me to start with your family.’

‘They should have had the sense to stay with you.’

‘What will I do if you do not find them?’

‘I’ll find them,’ he growled. ‘They’ll be tired of shopping by now.’

‘You are not afraid for them?’

‘I’ve got bigger things to worry about. They’re not children.’

She took another gulp of water. ‘I am sorry. You have enough troubles with that man wanting money.’

‘Not any more.’ He explained about Severus’ fatal visit.

She sighed. ‘This is worse. Everyone will think it was you.’

Ruso hesitated. At the moment, Tilla was a patient, and a patient should be kept away from unnecessary anxiety. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he assured her, dabbing the sponge into the bowl. ‘I’ll tell everybody what happened to him, and it’ll all be sorted out. Now, where exactly did you last see my sisters?’