Semper Fidelis

Chapter 36

Tilla had left the room in the mansio with its shutters closed. It seemed very gloomy after the sunlit courtyard. That was why she took a moment to notice the figure in the bed. She stepped back, wondering if the slave had let her into the wrong room, but no: There was her bag, and the medicine boxes on the floor. She was not the one in the wrong room.

She opened her mouth to call the slave back, then stopped. There was something odd about the sleeper. Keeping away from the bed and ready to spring toward the open door, she reached out and fumbled with the window latch. Eventually one shutter swung open.

That was when she screamed.

A couple of flies rose from the pillow and circled around the room.

The slaves all arrived at once and crowded into the doorway, craning around each other to gawp at the bloodstained snout of a dead pig poking out from under the sheet. The pig was lying on the pillow where Tilla had woken this morning next to her husband.

Somebody said, “Who put that there?”

Tilla swallowed and forced herself to step forward. Gripping the bedding between finger and thumb, she whipped the blankets back. The “body” was nothing but a couple of cushions.

Standing above the bed, she could see that the spatter of blood up the snout was an arrangement of letters. They were clumsily done-it must be hard to write on a pig’s snout with blood-but she managed to spell out enough to know what it said. One word.

TRAITOR.

She turned to face the slaves. “Did anyone see who put this here?”

But of course nobody had. The manager appeared, stared at the head in horror, and then hurried to promise investigations, punishments, and disposal of the offending object. He assigned Tilla a new room on the opposite side of the courtyard, escorting her there personally while the slaves followed with her baggage and the boxes of medicines. He promised to send warmed wine to soothe her nerves, and a message to alert her husband.

In the end, he seemed so worried about her that Tilla found she was trying to comfort him instead of the other way round. It was only a pig. Just someone’s idea of a silly joke. She was not hurt. She just wanted a clean bed, and this one would be fine, thank you. No, there was no need to leave one of the girls with her.

But when she was alone, someone rapped on the door of the new room and she found herself on her feet, knife in hand, before she had time to reason with her fear. It was a struggle to form the words “Who is it?” and only when it really was the slave with the warmed wine did she feel safe enough to put the knife away.