Semper Fidelis

Chapter 50

“Where are your toes?” asked Tilla. “Can you show me where your toes are?”

Lucios, seated on a rug on the mud floor, grasped the end of one chubby foot and looked up for approval.

“Oh, clever boy!”

It was hard to reconcile the grinning toddler with the red-faced, screaming creature she had seen thrashing about in his mother’s arms three days ago.

“Now where is your hair? Where’s Lucios’s hair? Shall I show you?”

The wispy blond hair was duly located and admired. “How about your ears? Oh, look! There they are! Two ears!”

Tilla hoped his mother would be back soon. The child was barely old enough for stories, she was running out of games and she would be glad to get away from this place. Corinna had clearly not been pleased to come down and find her still here this morning, and was even less pleased when Tilla explained that her husband had told her to wait here for a message. So Tilla had promised to find lodging elsewhere, and although they both knew that rooms were as rare as fish feathers in Eboracum at the moment, Corinna had thanked her and offered to pass on the message when it came. Meanwhile, perhaps Tilla would wait behind and watch Lucios while she went out to buy bread?

Tilla had duly noted that she was not to let the boy eat mud, or pull off his bandage, or go near the hearth or out of the gate (which was now barred) or up the ladder (a board was tied across the rungs to keep him off); and at the least sign of fidgeting or hiding in a corner, she was to insist that he sit on the pot.

Corinna had been gone a long time. There must be queues at the bakery, and no doubt much gossip to be exchanged after the rioting last night. Perhaps Corinna was glad of the break: Caring for a small child all day and night must be tedious. Was that how it would be if they ever had children of their own? And where would “home” be if Accius had her husband thrown out of the Legion?

She wished the message would come.

“I think,” she said, “it must be time for your milk.”

Lucios, easily contented, bounced with delight. While he slurped at the pointed spout-he insisted on holding the cup himself-she busied herself checking the repacked luggage. Essentials were in one bag and things that could be abandoned in the other, just in case she had to move quickly. The medicines would have to stay here until she could collect them. Corinna, whose son had benefited from them, would not begrudge her that.

She divided her small stock of coins into three. Some went back into the purse that she would tie to her belt. She glanced up to make sure Lucios was still safely occupied, then slipped others into a little linen medicine bag slung on twine around her neck, hidden inside her tunic. Then she unrolled a bandage, knotted the last remaining coins inside it, and hitched up her skirts to tie it around her waist. It was difficult to form a knot by feel, especially with the skirt fabric getting in the way, and it took several attempts, but finally she was satisfied that if she found herself traveling alone, she had done all she could to fool anyone who wanted to rob-

Lucios was not on the rug. Her heart beat faster. He was not in the room! Holy mothers, where-“Lucios?” she called, trying to sound calm. “Lucios!” She stopped. “How did you get up there?”

The toddler was balanced on the top rung of the ladder, just out of her reach. He was holding on-loosely-with one hand. The thumb of his free hand was stuffed into his mouth.

“Stay still!” she urged, untying the wretched board that was stopping her from reaching him. He must have bypassed it by climbing up the cupboard shelves. “Hold tight and don’t move, I’m coming!”

By the time she reached the top of the ladder, he was waddling away across the gloomy loft, giggling as if this were a fine new game. “I can see you!” she declared, hoping her voice would frighten the rats into hiding. “Here I come!”

There was no point in being cross. It was her own fault for not watching. She hoped she could get him safely down again before Corinna came home.

The boy threw himself onto a striped bedcover laid out on the floor. She moved toward him, ready to make a grab if he tried to run but keeping a wary eye on the dark expanses under the eaves lest something should scurry out. A misshapen pile hidden by an old gray blanket looked particularly suspicious, but that thing poking out from it was not moving. It was only an old sandal …

She stopped. There was nothing unusual about an old sandal in a loft, but this one had toes inside it.

Lucios had tired of the game. He held his hands out toward her. She scooped him up, then retreated carefully down the ladder, holding tight as he wriggled under her arm. As soon as they reached the ground, she carried him out onto the sunny cobbles beside the vegetable patch and placed herself in a position where she could watch the back door of the house. She sat with him between her knees and sang him a please-go-to-sleep song-not too loud, in case she missed the sound of a messenger from the fort knocking at the front.

She had heard nothing from either the door or the loft when Corinna returned. Lucios was finally asleep on a blanket in the shade, thumb in mouth and looking like a cupid in one of those dreadful paintings that decorated the stepmother-in-law’s dining room in faraway Gaul.

“I am sorry I am so late,” whispered Corinna, gathering up her sleeping son. “The army are out on the streets arresting people. I had to hide until they were gone.”

Tilla stabbed a finger toward the thatch and whispered back, “There is someone up there!”

Corinna glanced at her, then carried the boy into the house and lowered him onto the little bed in the alcove. He wriggled and opened his eyes, then found his thumb and drifted back to sleep. She beckoned Tilla across to the dead hearth. “Please tell no one. He has nowhere else to go.”

Tilla said, “It is not my business to tell. So there are no rats?”

Corinna managed a weak smile. “Just the one big one with ginger hair.”

“I will leave now,” said Tilla, wondering what he had overheard. “I will find somewhere else to stay.”

Corinna shook her head. “You should not go yet,” she said, reaching for the wicker chair. “Something very bad has happened.” Sitting on the wooden bench by the ashes of the hearth, Tilla learned that the Twentieth were still here, and did not look likely to leave today.

“Geminus is dead?” Tilla was stunned. This was not how it was supposed to end.

According to Corinna, the army were stopping people to question them about last night. Anyone who did not answer in the way the soldiers wanted was being arrested and taken away.

“What about my husband? Is there any news?”

“I heard …” Corinna paused. “I heard that a doctor has been taken for the murder,” she said, adding hastily, “But it might not be him.”

“Of course it is him! That is why he sent no message!” Tilla sprang to her feet, grabbing the bench before it toppled behind her. “I must go to the fort!”

“Not yet.” A figure was climbing down from the loft. To his wife Victor said, “How do we know she won’t talk?”

“She is a friend, husband!”

It was hard to recognize this ginger-bearded man as the creature who had begged her for food and then fled across the river. The swelling had gone down and the bruises were yellow stains.

“Her man’s accused of murder,” he said, placing himself between Tilla and the door to the street. “She knows I’m here, and everyone knows I had no love for Geminus. How do we know she won’t betray us to save him?”

Tilla drew herself up to her full height, which was not much less than his own. “Because I give you my word,” she said.

“She brought her husband to help Lucios,” urged Corinna.

“And if it were not for us,” said Tilla, “what would have happened to you when they caught you at the river?”

Victor continued to glare at her as if he were waiting for submission, then closed his eyes. “Forgive me,” he said quietly. “It is hard to know who to trust.”

“Indeed,” agreed Tilla. “Now, may I leave my bags here while I try to help the man who saved you and tended your son?”

“You may,” he said, stepping aside. “Holy Bregans go with you.”