Tabula Rasa

Chapter 31

“You can’t leave him there, Ruso!”

“I didn’t put him there.” Ruso had been surprised at the agility with which the aging Senecio had lowered himself onto his blanket. He was now hunched opposite the entrance to the HQ building. It was impossible for anyone to enter or leave without being aware of the old man’s gaze upon them.

Fabius said, “He’s in the middle of the road.”

“Move him, then. I’ve got to find Accius and I’m late for clinic at the camp.”

“But what-”

Whatever complaint Fabius was about to make died in his throat. The gates had screeched open again and a group of riders was making its way in. At the head of them was the distinctively straight-backed and scowling Tribune Accius.

Ruso sighed. He must be almost an hour late by now. There would be a line of disconsolate patients grumbling about him over at the camp, and the staff would be wondering if they had been forgotten. He put down his medical case and saluted. As he did so, someone shouted a warning, and a mule cart changed course to avoid the old man sitting in the street.

The tribune glared at Ruso and Fabius over the ears of his horse and demanded to know what the hell was going on. “I was told you had a hundred natives hammering on the gates and chanting war songs.”

“We’ve managed to disperse them, sir,” said Fabius.

“But you did have?”

Ruso said, “About fifty, sir, including women and children.”

“Why in the name of Jupiter didn’t you send someone to get me out of my meeting?” He sounded disappointed, as if he had missed the excitement. The cavalrymen with him would be annoyed too. They would have been hoping to see some action.

Ruso said, “I was on my way across to tell you, sir.”

“Centurion, is that a native sitting in the middle of the via principalis?”

Fabius confirmed that it was. “His son is missing, sir.”

“How is his getting run over going to help?”

“He’s made a vow, sir,” Ruso tried to explain. “He will neither leave the fort nor eat nor set foot indoors until his son is found.”

Accius stared at Ruso as if he were not sure he had heard correctly, then slid down from his horse. He took his helmet off and handed it to the groom who ran up to take the reins. “You first, Ruso,” he said, leading the way to HQ past the watching form of Senecio. “From the beginning.”

On the whole, Ruso felt later, Accius took it rather well. He sent urgent messages to the legate and neighboring units, and instantly grasped the importance of getting the search party to account for their movements yesterday. He also arranged for warnings to slave traders and their agents to look out for a stolen child. “Fabius, get those men rounded up. They’re not to speak to each other or anyone else until I join you to question them.”

Fabius did not look sorry to be sent away.

“Ruso, I want you here for a moment, then go and see to your patients and come straight back. Remind me what the name is again.”

“Branan, sir.”

“Not the boy: the father. Why haven’t I met him? I thought we knew everyone with influence around here?”

“Senecio, sir. He’s a farmer. And a poet. My wife knows him. You may have heard about him singing to the trees.”

“Ah. The crazy one.”

“Not crazy, sir.” At least, not before one of his three sons was killed and another stolen. Now, who knew? “He’s just very traditional.”

Ruso was acutely aware of the average officer’s failure to grasp how the locals saw things, which meant they often ended up negotiating with the wrong people. They would not bother with poets. If Rome were under threat, a general might quote a few lines of Virgil to rally the troops, but he was unlikely to rush to the Forum to enlist the help of some modern scribbler reciting his latest composition. “They hold the knowledge of their tribe in their memories,” he explained. “And they put together the latest events in verse. They’re like sort of . . . announcers and libraries rolled into one. They believe spoken words have great power.”

“This is why I want you along, Ruso. Local knowledge. Mixing with the natives.”

“Sir, I don’t-”

“You wanted to search for somebody. You can search for this one. Get someone to cover your medical duties and I’ll ask Pertinax to lend you to me.”

Ruso took a deep breath. Despite trying to learn his wife’s language, his energies had been concentrated not on understanding British habits but on weaning her away from them. Recent attempts to mix with the natives had been like leaping into a vast pit of ignorance and finding it filled with many more ways of getting things wrong than most of his comrades could possibly imagine. “I don’t know a lot, sir. And I’m not popular with them.”

“Never mind. You’re the only officer we’ve got with British connections. You speak the language: You’ll know what they’re really saying. If they want to find the child, they’ll deal with you, like you or not.”

“There are Britons in the ranks, sir.”

“I don’t want a Briton. I want one of us. Cheer up. This isn’t as bad as Eboracum.”

Privately Ruso thought it could turn out to be a lot worse than Eboracum.

“You never did tell me exactly what went on there.”

“No, sir,” agreed Ruso, who had no intention of telling him.

“Still, with luck this won’t spread any further. After we executed the last lot of troublemakers, the tribes went back to loathing each other even more than they loathe us.”

Again the failure to understand. “Sir, I think people tend to unite against a child snatcher.”

Accius gave a sigh of exasperation. “What’s the matter with the man, luring a child away from his family? I mean, if he wants a boy, why can’t he damn well pay for one, like a normal person?”

“There is this business of the body in the wall, sir.”

Accius raised one eyebrow.

Aware that the tribune was not going to like this, Ruso continued: “Branan’s name was mentioned as the person who put the story about. It’s an odd coincidence.”

“I’ll make some inquiries,” Accius promised. “But I very much doubt it’s anything to do with that. If our people arrest someone to make an example, they don’t do it secretly.”

“No, sir. What if whoever put the body there found out that Branan had seen it happen?”

Accius made a noise in his throat that suggested impatience. “That would only make sense if there really were a body, Ruso.”

Ruso shifted the weight of his medical case, wishing he had sent Gallus over to the camp to act in his place.

“So your theory,” continued Accius, “is that one of our men snatched a child because the child had seen him putting a dead body inside the emperor’s latest building project?”

Put that way, it sounded ridiculous. And yet . . . “I can’t see any other logical conclusion, sir.”

“Then keep looking. And don’t breathe a word of your pet theory to anyone else.”

“Sir, the natives are bound to work it out for themselves.”

“Well, don’t help them. We have enough troubles with the wall as it is. Now let’s see if I can pacify the mad poet.”

It was an odd encounter, like one of those triumphant sculptures on war monuments and military tombstones, depicting a Roman soldier looming over a cowering barbarian. Ruso watched it from the corner by the granary, expecting to be called at any moment to translate. Accius stood upright in gleaming armor with a sword slung at his side. At his feet crouched an elderly native with wild white hair, clothed in a muddle of brown and gold wool. The differences went deeper: In Ruso’s experience Accius was logical, efficient, and ambitious, and he was tipped for a role in the Senate. Senecio could neither read nor write, believed in the power of poetry, saw a reason to sing to trees, and trusted that obstinacy and public suffering would help to save his son. Whatever appearances might suggest, he was not cowering: He was simply not making the effort to stand up.

Somehow they managed to converse without help. It seemed Senecio could speak enough Latin when he wanted to.

When they had finished, Accius gave orders to one of his men and beckoned Ruso over.

“The old man will be staying here for a while. I’ve sent for a couple of British recruits to stand there and make sure nobody flattens him.”

Leading Ruso away out of earshot, the tribune added, “I’m not giving him the satisfaction of a fight. With luck he’ll get cold and bored and go home. But tell your staff to keep an eye on him. If he looks unwell, have him carted off to a hospital bed. I wouldn’t put it past the old goat to die on us.”

“I’ll tell them, sir.” Ruso shifted the case back to his other hand. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Go and see your patients and arrange some cover,” Accius told him. “Then come straight back here. I shall want you to deal with communications with the natives, so make yourself available. And don’t tell them anything unless I’ve authorized it first.”

“Sir, they really don’t trust me.”

“Stop fussing, Ruso. The priority is to find the boy. You said yourself: Everyone unites against a child snatcher.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and, Ruso . . .”

“Sir?”

“Smarten yourself up a bit. You’re representing the Legion. We may be surrounded by barbarians, but there’s no need to look like one.”