Tabula Rasa

Chapter 22

Ruso shed his cloak and shook off the worst of the water outside the hospital entrance. He hung it on a nail and went to find Gallus just as the curfew sounded.

The evening ward round was quiet, and he had more time than he wanted to think. The rumor of the body was surely no more than an attempt at sabotage: a tale spread in anger and guaranteed to feed on existing fears, especially with Samain coming up. It was certainly feeding on plenty of fears of his own. What was Candidus’s knife doing up at the wall?

Meanwhile, while he was worrying instead of concentrating on dietary advice to combat chronic wind, Candidus might have spent the day relaxing in a warm bathhouse, eating honey cakes, glad he had escaped Nisus’s terrifying threats to murder him and wishing he had brought his loaded dice.

If only he had known earlier that Senecio’s youngest son had been spreading the rumor. He could have confronted the old man about it this morning. As it was, Tilla had agreed to try and talk to the family tomorrow. They were unlikely to tell her anything, let alone the truth. But she had a better chance than anyone else he could think of, and until he knew the tale about the body was a lie or until Candidus turned up, he knew he would be uneasy. She would go there on the pretext of warning them to prepare for another visit from the soldiers, who would soon be there demanding to know what Branan had seen. After that . . . “If you’re going to say or do anything you shouldn’t,” he told her, “then don’t tell me about it.”

She had said, “You know I will not,” and kissed him.

He had no idea whether she had meant she would not do anything untoward or that she would do whatever she thought was necessary but not tell him about it. It was true that a man had to be master in his own house, but there were times when it was best not to know.

He had deliberately left Pertinax until the end of his round. The man continued to make remarkable progress. It was a shame he did not appreciate it. Despite being trapped in a hospital bed, he seemed to consider himself still on duty and obliged to keep up standards by pointing out any shortcomings that came to his attention. Or, as Valens would have put it, he was well enough to grumble. Ruso resisted the temptation to try and cheer him up by telling him his daughter was on the way. It was anyone’s guess what state the roads were in, and in his experience, no matter how skilled they were at terrifying grown men, fathers always worried about their daughters.

He was concentrating on examining the wound, making the usual checks for inflammation and hemorrhage, when he became aware that Pertinax’s complaints had turned to “. . . this half-baked nonsense about a body in the wall. I suppose you’ve heard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The centurions need to work them harder,” said Pertinax. ”If they want something to be frightened of, they can be frightened of us.”

Ruso said, “Can I ask who told you, sir?” Whoever it was, the man clearly needed a good fright himself. Ruso was looking forward to administering it until Pertinax said, “That tribune with the bad smell under his nose. What do they call him?”

“Accius,” supplied Ruso. It was not like Pertinax to forget a name.

“Him,” Pertinax agreed. “Came in here this morning. I told him you need a better clerk straightaway.”

Ruso felt his mouth fall open and closed it again. After repeating the words to himself to check that he had understood correctly, he said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me,” growled Pertinax, swiftly closing the chink of generosity as if he were embarrassed by it. “The place is a shambles. I can tell that even from here. How many times have I got to ask before I get a pair of crutches?”