Tabula Rasa

Chapter 25

When they reached the main road, Inam turned left and led Tilla along the rough grass verge before stopping a couple of paces back from the roadway. The sun was fully up now, and the frost was retreating into the shadows. She heard the muffled hoofbeats of a couple of local riders cantering toward them, perhaps in response to the horn. Conn hailed them from some distance away, and they stopped to speak to him.

She said to Inam, “You were here?”

He nodded.

“And the soldier came along the road?”

He nodded again.

“Which way did he come from?”

The boy pointed past Conn and the riders, in the direction of the little fort and the scattering of buildings where Tilla was lodging.

“Then what happened?”

Inam resumed his interest in his feet. It was so cold, she doubted he could feel them.

“Did he talk to both of you, or just to Branan?”

After a pause, he mumbled, “Branan.”

“Can you remember what he said?”

A shake of the head.

“Did he seem friendly?” When he did not reply she tried, “Was he cross?”

A pause, then a shrug.

“Did he have a beard? Or a big nose, or bandy legs, or a limp, or-anything?”

“Don’t know.”

Tilla took a slow breath and gazed down the road. She could see a carriage approaching in the distance. “When my brothers were your age,” she said, “they used to walk along the side of the road with their hands full of pebbles. They would wait till someone rode past, and if nobody was watching, they threw pebbles at the horse’s rump to see if they could make it shy.”

Inam looked up. “Did they get caught?”

“Once or twice. When they hit the rider by mistake.”

“I would never do that.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

Finally the boy pointed at the opposite verge. “Branan was over there.”

“And you were here?”

He started to cry again. “It wasn’t my idea!”

She put her arm around him. Everything about this child looked and felt as though it might snap at any moment. “Nobody is blaming you. Your father only got angry because everyone is worried about Branan.”

Finally Inam confessed. It had been a simple prank: The boys would crouch in the grass on either side of the road and wait until a rider or vehicle was approaching at speed. At the last minute they would rise up together, reaching out as if each was holding one end of an invisible rope blocking the carriageway. She could imagine the effect it would have on anyone about to rush past them. They were lucky no nervous guard had loosed a javelin at them.

“Branan was over there because he can run faster than me.”

If a victim was not amused, the prankster on the farm side would be able to flee into the shelter of the woods. Whoever was on army land would have to dodge his angry pursuers and get back across the road to safety.

“So you couldn’t hear what they were saying over there?”

The nod was more enthusiastic this time.

“But somebody told you Branan was going to see me?”

“He said, ‘I’ve got to go: Our Roman lady is looking for me.’ And I waited till it was getting dark and he didn’t come back and it was cold, so I went home.”

“Did he say he would come back?”

The boy thought about it for a moment. “He said, ‘See you later.’ ”

“Can you remember which way they went?”

Again the small hand rose and pointed. Tilla squinted into the low sun. The soldier had gone east in the direction of the little fort. “Did they run or walk?”

“Walk.”

“Do you think they were talking to each other?”

Another shrug.

“When they walked away,” she said, indicating a vertical space of about a foot with her hands, “was the soldier this much bigger than Branan?” She trebled the gap. “Or more like this much?”

Inam picked a height in between the two. The soldier was from the Twentieth; he was sure of that and she did not doubt him. It was the sort of thing local boys knew. They were seduced by the glamour of banners and weapons and shiny armor, no matter what their families said about the men who bore them. The soldier had worn armor over a red tunic and he had a helmet on. Yes, the lorica, the jointed plates of armor-not chain mail. No, he could remember no crests or decorations. No, the man’s legs were not especially fat or thin. He might have had a beard or he might not. Probably . . . not. But he might. Inam began to chew his lower lip. “I couldn’t see.”

Tilla waited while the carriage rumbled past them. The driver looked down at her and winked. She pretended not to notice, just as she had pretended not to see the flash of blue in the woods that was exactly the shade Inam’s mother was wearing. It seemed the women did not trust Conn as a protector. “We’ll go back to your house. Your mam will be waiting.”

The boy began to sniffle again. “Will you tell my da?”

“I shall tell him,” Tilla promised, “that you are a sensible boy and you have been very helpful.”

“Will you find Branan now?”

“I will do my best.”

Once Inam was safely home, she would go straight to the fort. It was possible that Conn had been fobbed off at the gates and that Branan had indeed been seized for spreading malicious rumors. Yet, why send only one man, and why trick the boys into thinking it was not an arrest? It was not the Legion’s way of doing things.

Something about it was very, very wrong.