Semper Fidelis

Chapter 8

The occupied rooms of Eboracum’s hospital were at the front by the entrance hall, while the kitchens were in one far corner and baths in the other. Kitchen staff and bathers were thus obliged to traverse long corridors lined with gloomy wards whose shuttered windows would have offered a fine view of native weeds strangling the herbs in the courtyard. Ruso waited until they were alone in such a corridor before he asked Pera to explain

The others were accidents.

“This way, sir.” Pera looked both ways before ushering Ruso through the nearest door and closing it behind him. “Is that why you’ve come to inspect us, sir? Because of the accidents?”

“No, this is just routine.” It was true. A routine invented only last week was still a routine if one had plans to stick to it. “But since I’m here, can I help?”

Instead of answering, Pera opened the door and stepped back into the light of the corridor. “Sorry, sir. Wrong room.”

Ruso stayed where he was. “Tell me about the accidents.”

At the sound of distant voices, Pera flattened one arm against the door as if to hold it wide for his old tutor’s exit. “We’re not using this ward anymore, sir. I forgot.”

“The accidents, Pera?”

Pera glanced back along the corridor, but no help came. Still Ruso did not move. Eventually Pera’s arm dropped. With the door safely closed again behind him, he went across to peer through the cracks in the shutters before saying, “We’ve been ordered not to talk about it, sir.”

“Not in front of the men,” Ruso agreed. “That’s understandable. But if any of this has involved the medical service, I need to know.”

Pera massaged the back of his neck with one hand, as if it would ease his obvious reluctance to speak. Finally he said, “It’s all nonsense, sir.”

“Nonsense or no,” said Ruso, “the lad’s right: If word reaches Deva that they’re an unlucky batch of recruits, they won’t get much of a welcome. What happened?”

“You’d have to ask Centurion Geminus, sir.”

Ruso sighed. “Pera, if you invite someone into a private room and close the door, he expects something interesting to happen.”

“But I can’t tell you anything, sir.”

“So it seems. Although anyone who’s watching will think you have.”

There was a silence, and Ruso guessed Pera had not thought of that. “Never mind,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll go and ask the patients.”

“No!” Pera sidestepped to block his exit. “Sir, there was a recruit who drowned when he was crossing the river.”

“When was this?”

“About six weeks ago. And then two days ago a man had an accident during training. You know how superstitious the Britons are, sir. Once they get the idea of a curse-or anything, really-into their heads, it’s hard to knock it out again.”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Pera must have picked up something from his tone. “Sir, I didn’t mean to insult your-”

“I know,” said Ruso, who was frequently baffled by Tilla’s intransigence himself.

“The ones whose fathers were in the Legion have more of an idea, sir,” continued Pera hastily. “But some of them are full-blooded natives. They’re only citizens because their fathers are officials. It’s not like the old days.”

“True,” observed Ruso, wondering whether Pera really imagined he was ancient enough to remember the days when most recruits were sent out from Italy. He was right, though: it was not like the old days. Nobody had explicitly stated that standards were to be relaxed, but Ruso was not the only doctor to end up arguing with the recruitment officer when a medical board rejected more men than was convenient.

That, however, was a battle for another day. In the meantime two fatal accidents in six weeks was unusual, but he was not an investigator now. He was not going to start imagining curses and conspiracies around every corner. He had seen the difficulties of crossing the river for himself, and deaths in training were not unknown. Men had nasty encounters with the moving parts of heavy weaponry. They wandered across a firing range, or got too close to a sharp edge, or were trampled by horses. Sometimes a man simply succumbed to a physical weakness that had revealed itself under the pressure of the demands upon him. Once the facts were clear, even the Britons might begin to grasp the concept of coincidence. “What happened to the lad in training?”

“He was dead before they got him here, sir.”

“Is there something wrong with your neck?”

Pera retrieved the hand. “Sorry, sir. I was told he fell and hit his head.”

“But presumably the lad this afternoon went up on the roof of his own accord. Do we know why?”

Pera’s hands were clamped behind his back. He glanced down as if he could not remember where he had put them. “I think Centurion Geminus might be the best person to ask, sir.”

“I see,” said Ruso, curious to know what Pera was hiding and wondering whether he was more wary of the curse than his official position would allow. So far he had revealed nothing that Ruso could not have found out by asking around the barracks.

“Well, we can’t do anything for dead men,” he said, hoping he would get more sense out of Geminus later. “Let’s go and see what we can do for the rest.”

None of the half dozen men occupying hospital beds was suffering from anything that was of great interest to anyone except himself. All appeared well kept, adequately fed, and appropriately treated. The couple of recruits amongst them appeared subdued to the point of sullenness, but Ruso supposed that, after losing two comrades in two days, it was only to be expected.

There was one remaining patient: a youth with haunted eyes and a heavily bandaged upper right arm. His name was Austalis and he was being kept in isolation between two other vacant rooms, presumably in an attempt to provide peace and quiet. His response to “How are you today, Austalis?” was a worryingly weak “Very good, sir.”

“I hear you had a knife injury. Mind if I take a look?”

The patient appeared indifferent. Ruso lifted the edge of the bandaging with a finger and did not like what he saw. “That looks painful.”

“A bit, sir.”

Ruso glanced at Pera. “What are you giving him for pain?”

Pera looked at the two junior medics who had crowded into the room behind them. One of them said, “He hasn’t complained before, sir.”

“Did anybody ask him?”

Nobody answered.

“What’s in the compress?”

“Elm leaves and vinegar, sir.”

Ruso nodded. “We’ll give you some poppy tears for the pain in a minute,” he promised, surprised that Pera had not seen to it before. There was no stool, so he sat on the edge of the bed, feeling a pulse that was thin and too fast.

“Are you normally in good health?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s your appetite?”

The youth’s hollow eyes turned to the bowl of something brown that sat untouched beside the water jug on the bedside table.

Pera said, “We weren’t sure whether to feed him, sir, but he didn’t want it.”

Ruso lifted the spoon a fraction. A skin like a leather tent rose up with it. He handed the cold bowl to one of the juniors. “Get rid of it.”

Outside the room he said, “I’ll clean the wound up in the morning. Meanwhile, move him where you can keep a close eye on him. Give him half a lozenge of poppy, make sure he takes plenty of water, and call me immediately if there’s any change.”

“I would have moved him, sir, but he’s supposed to be kept away from the other men.”

“Why’s that?”

“Centurion’s orders, sir. The injury was self-inflicted.”

“The centurion doesn’t know how ill he is,” said Ruso, not wanting to pick a fight with Geminus over a man who had probably sliced up his sword arm to get out of training. “Move him carefully, straightaway, and if there’s any problem I’ll take responsibility.”

For a moment Pera looked like a man who did not know which way to run. “This is the hospital, Pera,” he said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. “I’m the medical officer.”

Pera looked relieved to be given no choice. He gave instructions to prepare a room opposite the staff office.

Two accidental deaths in six weeks, not to mention one suicide and one potentially fatal self-inflicted injury. The recruits of Eboracum did indeed seem to be under some sort of malign influence. Geminus was trying to impose discipline. Pera was trying to patch them up. Maybe it was his own role to introduce some logical thinking around here.

Meanwhile, he realized there was one place he had not been shown. “Where’s your mortuary?”

An expression that might have been embarrassment passed over Pera’s face. “I didn’t want to disturb them while they’re preparing the body, sir.”

“You did tell your staff there would be an inspection?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Then just point me in the right direction. I won’t disturb them any more than necessary.”