Tabula Rasa

Chapter 50

“Face it, Ruso,” Valens said, checking the apple for maggot holes before chopping it in two on the scarred surface of the operating table and handing half of it over. “You’re not thinking straight. I grant you he’s not the friendliest of characters, but it’s a bit much to imagine he spent his leave abducting and murdering people.”

“I’m not imagining anything,” Ruso told him. “The orders are to pin everyone down. Nisus left on the day that Candidus disappeared, and he came back the day after Branan vanished. I’ve already sent a message to the Phoenix. I’m just asking you to keep an eye on him.”

Valens flicked an apple seed onto the floor. “There must be a quicker way to do this than eliminating several thousand men one by one. Gallus has already wasted half the morning asking all the staff where they were the day before yesterday and then checking it. Besides, what if the chap who took the boy has deserted? It’s not much use knowing his name if we don’t know where he is.”

“There would be a quicker way,” Ruso told him, “if Virana could remember who was in the bar when Branan delivered the eggs.”

“Will it help if I ask her?”

“No, thanks. I’ve just come from there and she’s upset enough as it is.” Although she had been pleasantly surprised by Conn’s visit to thank her for her help. “He’s not nasty, really,” she explained while marveling at his change of heart. “It’s just that nobody understands him.”

“I have to say,” Valens observed, leaning back on the sill of the window, “that it’s lucky I was over at the baths with about forty people when the boy went. I’m not sure how well I could account for my movements most of the time. Could you?”

Ruso, his mouth full of apple, was chewing his way through to stating, “I’m never alone!” when it occurred to him that this was not true. Most of the time he felt besieged by patients and staff and rarely escaped except to fall asleep or spend time with his wife-often both at the same time. But he frequently traveled alone from one place of work to another. Although his time, like that of everyone else, was marked by the trumpet calls, anything between them was guesswork. How could he prove that he had gone straight from one location to another? Conversely, if he chose to “lose” some time in between two of them, who would notice?

“It’s a messy business,” he observed. “And all the time we’re looking, the boy could be getting further away.”

“Do you remember playing that game with the blindfold?” Valens asked. “You know, the one where you blindfold someone and tell him to find certain people in the room, but everybody keeps tiptoeing about from place to place, so that no matter how hard he tries, he never finds them unless they want him to?”

“No,” said Ruso, trying to picture Valens as a child.

“Really?” His friend sounded genuinely surprised. “Of course, it was much more fun when there were girls playing.”

“I can imagine.”

“And plenty of wine.”

“Is this happy memory supposed to help?”

“I thought it might help to express the situation you find yourself in.”

“Not just me,” Ruso pointed out. “All of us. Except that one of us is only pretending to wear the blindfold.”

Ruso stood in the street outside the hospital and realized he had done everything he could think of. There had been no new messages at the bar to follow up on. No wife, either, but waiting for him instead was a very large bill that he promised to deal with later. Deal with. Not pay. Ria could make of that what she would.

He had spoken briefly with Senecio and told him that there was no news, which was at least better than bad news, but not by much. It was surprising how easily everyone seemed to have grown used to the sight of the old man sitting there. He had noticed the guard twitching the toes of one foot at regular intervals, as if he were singing a song in his head to relieve the boredom. Beside him, Senecio might as well have been a broken-down vehicle awaiting repair or removal.

Ruso had filled a whole morning with activities that were supposed to help rescue Branan, and none of them seemed to have achieved anything. Valens was right: This one-at-a-time thing was hopeless. He straightened his belt and his tunic, checked his bootlaces, ran both hands through his hair, and went to see if Accius had any better ideas. Or any ideas at all.

Inside the HQ, Accius was gathering up his cloak. With him was a man whom Ruso had seen before but never spoken to. He had a thick neck and cropped iron-gray hair. There was something vaguely bovine about his slow, deliberate movements and the way he breathed heavily through his nose. He looked like a man not easily distracted from his task. With a neck like that, he was probably also a man who snored, although Ruso never knew how men like that managed to sleep at all. Were their dreams haunted by the screams of their victims?

Accius caught sight of him. “Any news, Doctor?”

“No, sir.”

“Go and find out how the natives are getting on. Come and find me in a couple of hours and we’ll see where we’ve got to.” Accius turned to the questioner. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lead the way, then.” The tribune’s expression was set in a manner that suggested he was about to face an unpleasant task.

Ruso asked, “Is Optio Daminius in the clear now, sir?”

Accius looked him in the eye. “No. Thanks to you, we now know the optio is lying about where he went that afternoon. Go away, Ruso.”

They made an odd couple as they turned immediately right outside the HQ building: the heavy questioner and the upright aristocrat who might one day be a highly respectable senator charged with approving legislation. Ruso, watching from beneath the covered walkway of the barrack block, knew he should stay out of this. He should let whatever was going to happen happen. He had no authority to question it, and besides, Accius had probably wrestled with his own conscience anyway-not about the pain, but about the illegality.

The men turned right again almost immediately before the granary. Ruso reached the corner of the granary just in time to see them turn in at the entrance to the workshops. He knew exactly why he had been sent away. Accius was trying to make sure none of his officers could be accused of being complicit in the application of torture to a serving soldier.

It was a peculiar form of decency. Sacrificing one’s principles for the sake of the child. If only Ruso could convince himself that the result would be worth it.

A voice in his head said, So, can you think of anything else to try?

He couldn’t. Daminius had lied. He was a responsible and ambitious young officer, he knew how important this was, and he had lied.

A dozen or so men in rough working tunics came out of the maintenance yard. They formed up and marched off in the direction of the barracks. So the workshops had been emptied of their regular occupants. Ruso could smell the furnace.

Ruso flattened himself against the wall of the wheelwright’s store, feeling the waft of warm air on his skin. In the gloom of the smithy, the glow of the burning charcoal picked out dark stripes and curves against the far wall. He understood now why the questioner seemed to have brought no equipment. Hanging there were all the implements anyone could possibly need to loosen a man’s tongue. He felt his own tunic prickle with sweat.

A confused shuffle of footsteps was coming toward him down the street. He stepped back into the wheelwright’s shop until the footsteps had passed. When he looked again, a barefoot and gagged figure was standing in the yard, surrounded by four men. Ruso did not recognize the guards. They were certainly not from the Twentieth. Accius was not going to risk a mutiny by putting Daminius in the custody of his own messmates.

The Tribune stepped forward and spoke to the prisoner. “Optio Daminius, none of us want this, but a child is missing and I will do whatever is necessary to find him. Do you understand?”

Daminius nodded.

“Do you have a fresh account of your movements two days ago?”

Daminius shook his head.

Accius stepped back. There was a moment’s silence, then he said, “Carry on.”

The questioner spoke to the guards. One of them entered the workshop, squinted up into the rafters, and then slung a rope up over something and caught the other end. The others stripped a struggling Daminius of his clothes and prodded him forward. Meanwhile someone pumped the bellows and a roar of white flame shot up from the charcoal.

Ruso caught a glimpse of something hanging beside the identity tag around Daminius’s neck. My lucky charm, sir. Never fails. If you’re in trouble, just shout.

Ruso turned and ran.