Tabula Rasa

Chapter 28

“You can be the one to tell him,” Ruso told his wife as they approached the little building that served as the fort HQ.

“Me?”

“You’re a native. He’ll be frightened of you.”

Passing the guard, Ruso was surprised to hear, “Sorry about your father, sir.”

He stopped. “My father?”

“It is a great shock,” said Tilla, seizing him by the arm and moving him on.

When they were in the cramped entrance hall waiting for Fabius, he hissed, “What about my father?”

“I had to get in here to tell you about Branan. His family are desperate. Imagine if it is our son.”

It was bad enough to have no son-impossible to make the next leap, and to imagine the pain of losing one. Instead he said, “What’s this got to do with my father?”

“I said to the guards, ‘I have to see the Medicus. I have bad news. His father is dead.’ ”

He slumped back against the wall as understanding dawned. Mercifully, no one here was likely to know that his father had died before he and Tilla had even met.

“I did not lie to them,” she insisted.

“Oh. Well, that makes everything fine, then.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is what I think too.”

Fabius looked alarmed when he was told that there was another missing person and that a soldier was to blame, but Tilla gave him no time to feel sorry for himself. “I am thinking, sir, that this is a good chance for you to be a friend to the local people.”

“A friend?” He looked incredulous. “They are accusing one of our men-”

“That is why they will thank you for making a search,” she said, interrupting, “just as you did for your own man who is missing.”

Fabius glanced at Ruso as if hoping he would get his wife under control. Ruso remained impassive.

Fabius said, “We get malicious rumors all the time. How do we know this isn’t another one?”

“I know the family, sir,” Tilla assured him. “And I have spoken to the boy who saw it happen.”

Again Fabius looked to his fellow officer. “If your wife has been implicated in this alleged kidnapping, Ruso, she has a good reason to shift the blame onto my men.”

“My wife doesn’t lie.” Too late, he remembered how she had got past the guards.

Tilla straightened her shoulders. “I am here to find the missing boy, sir.”

Fabius rubbed the side of his nose. “This so-called soldier was probably some native dressed up, wanting to cause trouble.”

“The witness saw a man from this legion, sir,” she insisted. “Not a centurion, just an ordinary soldier. If he was a local man, the boys would know him and know it was some sort of trick.”

Fabius sighed and muttered, “Why me?” as if he were the one in trouble.

From somewhere outside, Ruso thought he could hear shouting.

“If you send messages to the other forts, sir,” said Tilla, “and ask them to question their men and make a search of their buildings and land, and stop all vehicles on the road and look inside, the local people will think you are on their side.”

“Why would I want to-”

“Otherwise they will be wanting to come in and search themselves. I am thinking you will say no, which is your right, and then there will be complaints to the tribune and the legate and-”

“I know what will happen,” Fabius groaned. “One thing the natives are very good at is complaining.”

Someone was knocking on the door. “We do not want another Regulus,” put in Tilla, who had no way of knowing that she had already frightened him with the threat of a fresh reprimand from the tribune.

The new arrival brought a message to say there were angry natives gathering outside the south gate, and all the gates had now been barred. Two natives were demanding to speak to the commanding officer. “They say they’re the boy’s family, sir.”

“They’ll find a more senior officer over at camp.”

Apparently the watch captain had already growled that at them. “They don’t want to go the camp, sir. They want to come in here.”

Fabius’s head slumped into his hands. “Let them in. Just the two of them. Make sure you search them properly. And fetch Daminius. All this is giving me a headache.”

“It is giving everyone a headache, sir,” Tilla told him. “The only cure is to find the boy safe and well. Until then, my people cannot trust yours. Any man in the Legion could be the kidnapper.”

To Ruso’s relief, she decided to stop there and let Fabius mull over her demands. Outside, the shouting resolved itself into a chant.

Fabius’s irritable “What’s keeping them?” was answered when Senecio and Conn entered very slowly, the older man walking with a stick and leaning on his son’s arm.

Afterward Ruso always remembered the start of that meeting with shame. It was not the way father and son looked like cornered animals, caught between defiance and desperation. It was not the way Fabius turned to Tilla and demanded, “What is he saying?” after Senecio had abandoned his principles and asked in thickly accented but clear Latin, “Where is my son?” It was not Fabius’s insistence on pointing out that he personally had no idea where Senecio’s son was-something that left Conn observing aloud in British, “We are wasting our time with this one.” What left him angry and embarrassed was that the only seat in the room was occupied by a Roman centurion while an obviously lame old man who had suffered a terrible loss was left to stand under escort as if he were about to attack his hosts with his bony fists.

Ruso ordered one of the guards to go and fetch a seat and some water for the visitors. Fabius glared at him. Ruso pretended not to notice.

The old man’s eyes met his own. “My sons are my life,” he whispered.

From outside the gates-at least, he hoped it was outside-Ruso could hear the continued chanting of angry locals.

“Those are our neighbors out there,” Conn said. He pointed in turn to Ruso, Fabius, and the guards. “If you sons of whores will not give my brother back, our people will come in and find him.”

“We’re as keen to find him as you are,” Ruso told him, glancing at the guards, who looked as though they would like to take Conn outside and explain a few things to him.

“I doubt this. You sent one of my brothers to the next world. Now you have the other one.”

Tilla leaned close to Conn, lifted the straggly hair with one finger, and whispered fiercely in his ear. Ruso thought he caught the British words for insult and trying to help.

Conn scowled at her but reserved his contempt for the Romans. “We are not fools. We know how you can tell who my brother is. We know it must be one of the men from in here.”

Fabius was still determined to argue. “Your brother’s name has been associated with a malicious rumor.”

“Yes. You spread a lie about him, then you take him away. Where is he?”

“Are you denying that he claimed to witness an illegal burial?”

Conn hesitated, perhaps making sure he had unraveled the Latin correctly before deciding how to answer. He said, “My father’s people know nothing of this. We do not speak of a burial to anyone.”

Fabius sat forward. “Then who did?”

Someone knocked on the door as Conn demanded, “Why do you ask me? Look to your own men. Give us Branan back.”

The chair and Daminius had arrived at the same time. Instead of sitting, Senecio clung on to Conn’s arm and hissed in British, “That is one of them!”

“Are you sure?”

“I know it!”

While Fabius began to explain the situation to Daminius, Conn was whispering urgently to Tilla. Nobody was bothering with the old man. Ruso stepped forward and urged him into the chair before he fell. Senecio clutched his arm, still very agitated, and insisted in British, “He is one of them! He came to the farm!”

“Silence!” ordered Fabius. He sounded more petulant than authoritative. He turned to his deputy. “Optio?”

“I’ll have the men account for their movements yesterday, sir,” Daminius promised. “And we’ll have all the buildings and the quarry searched.”

“Wait!” Tilla cried. “Not yet!”

Ruso frowned. This was going too far. He reached for her arm. “A word in private, wife,” he urged, excusing them both and propelling her toward the door. Out in the entrance hall he whispered, “You can try telling Fabius what to do when nobody else is listening, but you can’t order his optio about in front of everyone. Daminius is a sensible man and he’s trying to help. What’s all the fuss about?”

“Daminius is the man who searched the farm.”

“Gods above, don’t your people ever let go of a grudge? He was only obeying orders! Now he’s been ordered to help find Branan.”

“This is not a grudge! Listen!” Tilla glanced around to make sure they were alone before putting her arms around him. To anyone passing through the hall, they might have been snatching a moment of un-Roman intimacy. Her breath tickled his ear as he heard, “Senecio has been thinking. What soldier will know to say to Branan, ‘The Roman lady wants to see you?’ He has been asking himself, ‘What Roman could know that Branan has met the Daughter of Lugh?’ Who has seen me and Branan together?” She paused, letting him think about that for a moment.

“The search party who went to the farm,” he said.

“Yes. And Daminius is one of them.”