Tabula Rasa

Chapter 21

It had not been a good day. The tribune thought he was an idiot, and if the natives were to hold a Least Popular Roman competition, he had no doubt he would win it.

Even worse, no matter how much Ruso reassured everyone else, he was convinced that something bad had happened to Candidus.

He had to wait for his eyes to adjust before he could see his way across the gloom of the loft. Downstairs, the clatter from the kitchen died away as somebody closed a door. He pulled off his boots, lowered himself down next to the figure on the bed, and closed his eyes. Then he opened them in alarm as something cold flopped onto his head. He retrieved what seemed to be a wet sock and let it fall to the floor, suddenly reminded of the medic from the Second who used to take hot stones from beside the hearth and wrap his dirty socks around them to steam them dry overnight. The man had been dead for a couple of years now-not suffocated by the smell but speared through the throat when he had ridden out with a rescue party to help the victims of a native ambush. There was a lot of sense to building a wall.

A voice beside him said, “I am not asleep.”

He rolled over and kissed her gently on the tip of the nose. “Hello.”

“Why are you not under the covers? You will get cold out there.”

He removed the other wet sock from the pillow. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“But I am not sleeping.”

He unbuckled his belt and joined her. “Virana said you had a headache.”

“I said that to stop her talking.”

“She can talk as much as she likes.” Her thigh was warm and smooth under his hand. “As long as she stays out of here for a while.”

She drew away.

“Uh?”

“Not now.”

“Surely it’s not time for-”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh.” He withdrew the hand. It was going to be one of those you-ought-to-know-what-I’m-thinking moments.

There was a time when he had unjustly assumed these moments were peculiar to his first wife. Or even that it was his own fault-that he had missed a crucial link in the chain of reasoning that would explain how a perfectly normal conversation had suddenly arrived at a place where he knew only two things: firstly, that he had no idea why Claudia had taken offense; and secondly, that whatever it was, she was not going to tell him.

“I’ve been to see Senecio,” he said, guessing.

“I do not suppose either of you spoke of the wedding blessing.”

“No.”

She sighed.

Ah. The wedding blessing. It would be a while before he was forgiven for that one. If only she had never gotten involved with those people.

Her hair was tickling his nose. He pulled away and lay facing the faint lattice of the rafters and the dark bulge where he had hung Candidus’s kit bag, and thought of the time when those blonde curls had been gray with grime and so hopelessly matted that he had threatened to cut them off. Then, months later, when she had become much more than an unwanted slave, there had been that peculiar conversation in the middle of the night. She had wriggled about for the umpteenth time and muttered something, and he had tried to hide his irritation with “Can’t you sleep?”

Afterward he had lain pondering her reply, wondering what British concept she had intended the Latin words to convey. In the end he had said, “You just told me your hair wakes you up.”

“Yes.”

“Your hair?”

“I forget to tie it back. When I turn over, the hair is caught under my shoulder. Or yours. I must wake up to move the hair so I can move my head.”

“I knew you should have let me cut it off.”

He was glad she hadn’t.

It was raining again. He could hear it dripping off the thatch. “I’m sorry about the wedding blessing.”

“I do not think so.”

“Well, I’m sorry for you.”

No reply. He wondered whether it was worth trying again, or whether that would just make things worse. “It must be lonely for you sometimes, trailing around after me.”

She said, “Yes.”

“I’m glad you do.”

It was too much to hope that she might say she was glad too, but after a pause he felt a hand groping for his own. She said, “I’m hungry.”

He drew the hand up to his lips and kissed it. “Can you wait?”

“How long?”

“Half an hour?”

Afterward, when they were dozing in each other’s arms amidst a tangle of bedclothes, he heard, “That was not half an hour.”

“Are you complaining?”

She giggled. “No.”

They lay listening to the world outside, in no hurry to join it. Feet scurried across the room below them. Conversation rose and faded as the bar door was opened and closed. There was more dripping. Boots marched down the street. Someone whistled for a dog.

She said dreamily, “Can you stay here tonight?”

“I wish I could,” he said, guiltily remembering that he was supposed to be asking her about the body-in-the-wall rumor, and then remembering Candidus’s knife. “Night duty.”

“You are always on night duty!”

“Not the night we went to Senecio,” he pointed out. “Although I might as well have been.”

She sighed. “I know. ‘It is a small hospital. There is only one doctor.’ ”

“It’s the truth.”

“They should give you a proper clerk.”

“Not after we carelessly lost the last one.”

“He has caused a lot of trouble.” She nuzzled his ear. “Tell Albanus he must look for him himself.”

“I’d rather Albanus didn’t find out. I don’t want to upset him even more after Grata.”

She propped herself up on one elbow. “What about Grata?”

“He and Grata have fallen out. No marriage.”

“When did you hear this? Why did you not tell me?”

“I forgot,” he admitted.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m more worried about his nephew.”

“You are hopeless,” she told him. “And I am still hungry. At least stay to eat.”

As they groped for their clothes she said, “It is Albanus’s own fault. He should never have told you that such a silly boy was a good clerk.”

“I’m not sure that he did,” Ruso admitted. “He was just doing his best to look after him.”

“Albanus knows nothing of people,” she told him, pointing one slender foot in the air and hiding it inside a sock. “He spends too long with words and writing. He thinks I am bad for you.”

“I’m sure he’s never said that.”

“He thinks I lead you into trouble.”

“You do.”

By way of reply, Tilla dragged a shawl off the end of the bed and gave it a vigorous shake.

He said, “Have you heard any rumors about the wall?”

“Which rumor would you like?” she offered, flinging the shawl around herself and ramming in the pin. “It will fall down when the snow comes. It will be fifty feet high. People on opposite sides will have to pay money to visit their families. It is an abomination and the gods will have revenge. They have already started in the quarry.”

“About a dead person.”

She thought for a moment. “Was there not a man over near Banna whose friend fell off the scaffolding and landed on top of him and killed him?” she said. “Then there was a carter bringing supplies who was trampled by his own oxen, and in the summer a man fishing in the dark river found a body that was so rotted away that only the hair told them it was a woman.” She pulled her skirts straight. “Are you trying to find out something for the army?”

“There’s a new rumor about a body and they want to know how it got started.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“A Roman or one of the people?”

“I don’t even know that,” he admitted. “Nor where’s it’s supposed to be.”

“Are you sure it is dead?”

“It might not exist at all. It’s rather like one of our centurion’s ailments.”

She shook her head. “That is a rumor with no legs or wings, husband.”

He said, “I’m not supposed to spread it.”

“Ah, a secret rumor.” When he did not tell her more, she said, “I do not care. This time I cannot do any spying for the Legion even if I want to. Because of you, nobody will talk to me.”

“That’s more or less what I told Accius.”

There was a creak on the ladder. An unsteady glow rising from the square of the hatch signaled a lamp being carried up toward them.

“Tell me something sensible and I will see what I can find out,” Tilla said as Virana’s head appeared at floor level. “And then I will decide whether to tell you.”

Virana heaved herself up through the opening. “Is that you, master?”

“It is,” agreed Ruso, wondering who else she thought it might be.

“There are still seventeen sausages and eight tarts left because of the bad weather and the curfew. Ria has gone to visit her brother, so her husband says you can have some half price as long as nobody tells her. What will you find out, mistress? Can I help?”

“You already help us by working,” Ruso assured her.

“I like working.” Virana grinned. “You find out all sorts of things in a snack bar. Did you know there is a dead body buried in the emperor’s wall?”

Husband and wife exchanged a glance. He said, “It’s just a wild rumor, Virana. It isn’t true.”

“But it must be!” she exclaimed. “If Branan over at the farm will still talk to you, you can ask him yourself. He saw a man put it there.”