Tabula Rasa

Chapter 6

Ruso pulled his hood down over his eyes and strode on, perhaps the only man on the wall who was glad that it was nearly dark and starting to rain yet again. The patrol who had just passed would not know that the figure turning down a track leading only to native farmsteads was one of their own officers.

He had so nearly escaped. In a few more days, the Legion would be on the march back to Deva. If the wall had run a couple of hundred paces farther south, the family would have been turfed off their land and ended up somewhere miles away. The old man might never have seen Tilla at the market and seized her by the hand, begging to know if she was Mara come back to him. Unfortunately, the wall was where it was, and the military zone had only sliced off a few of the family’s fields. They had stayed to eke out a living on their shrunken farm, hidden away down a slithery track that was almost impossible to make out under the gloom of the dripping trees. Ruso pulled his cloak tighter around him and trod carefully.

That was what he would have to do, metaphorically speaking, when he arrived there. Unable to explain his misgivings to Tilla, he would have to stay alert for any hint of suspicious activity or attempts to compromise either of them. If these people thought they could persuade him to become their tame Roman, they were very much mistaken.

Reaching what must be the fork in the pathways that Tilla had told him about, he followed the curve of the right-hand route, and eventually the shape of a gate loomed ahead. He paused. The locals let their dogs loose at night to repel thieving soldiers.

There was no barking, just the sighing of the breeze in the trees and a spatter of raindrops. He took a deep breath and called, “Is anyone there?” in the language his wife had taught him.

“I am,” said a young voice. For a worrying moment it seemed to belong to the large dog that was sniffing at his hand.

“Hello,” said Ruso, leaving the hand where it was and edging the rest of himself farther away.

“Are you the doctor?” asked the voice.

“Yes,” said Ruso, just able to make out the shape of a boy attached to the dog. This must be the youngest son.

“I’m Branan.”

“Ruso. Sorry I’m late.”

“Now I can go in out of the rain.” Leading him across the uneven cobbles, Branan shouted, “He’s here!” and moments later a glimmer of light appeared. A shadowy figure standing in the shelter of the porch handed the lamp to the boy and greeted Ruso with one word in British: “Weapons.”

Ruso had expected the request to be couched in politer terms. “Who are you?”

“Conn. Do not pretend you have never heard of me. Give me your weapons.”

The boy pushed back his hood. From behind a curtain of wet curls, dark eyes glanced from one man to the other.

“Is my wife here?”

“She is.”

Ruso raised his arms, not wanting to pick a fight before he was even through the door. He felt himself being searched, and the boy’s fingers tugging at the fastenings of the scabbard. Conn said something to the boy in their own tongue about not taking the blade out.

The familiar weight of the sword lifted and was gone, borne away by a native into the darkness. Ruso tried to ask, “Where’s he taking it?” but if Conn understood, he chose not to reply.

Walking out of the fort without his armor on had been a matter of choice. Handing over an eighteen-inch slice of razor-sharp iron to a hostile local was definitely against regulations and against common sense too. He hoped his wife really was here.

Tilla had assured him several times that her own family had never collected enemy heads, nor predicted the future from the entrails and death throes of murdered prisoners, nor crammed people they did not much like into giant men made of wicker and burned them alive. But he had seen some of the things natives had done to stray soldiers. When pressed to admit that such things happened, Tilla changed the subject, choosing instead to remind him instead of the evils she had seen in the amphitheater. Usually in a tone that suggested he was personally responsible for them. So it was a relief when Conn pushed the door open to reveal several figures seated around a central fire, and one of them rose and hurried across to him. “Husband!”

She reached up to unfasten the clasp of his sodden cloak. “I was afraid you might not come.”

“Of course I came,” he said, trying to sound as though he had been looking forward to it all day. When Conn walked away he murmured, “Watch out for that one.”

She put a hand over his. “These are my people. We have to trust them.”

We. As it struck him that she did not sound sure of them herself, she prodded him in the small of the back. He stepped forward into the firelight and she announced, “My man is here!”

The creature who exclaimed “Ah!” from the depths of the carved chair probably looked less alarming when he was not seated beside a steaming cauldron with his wild white hair and deep-set eyes lit from below by orange flames. At least he looked welcoming. The hand clutching the walking stick shook with the effort as he hauled himself up to stand. A young woman with broad shoulders, capable hands, and a serious expression stepped forward from behind his chair to help him. Ruso guessed she must be Conn’s wife. He had tried to stay awake while Tilla explained all this, but he had only been listening for the gaps so that he could grunt in the right places.

There was movement in the dark spaces behind the wicker partitions, which were hung with furs and painted shields. Above them, over shelves filled with what looked like apples, he caught the glint of metal slung under the thatch. Not his own sword but curved blades. Farm tools with sharp edges.

Figures emerged from the hidden parts of the house and padded across the bracken-strewn floor to gather around the fire. Ruso blinked, feeling his eyes beginning to smart. The smoke from the hearth was making a poor job of finding its way out through the thatch. He counted four more adults and several children. All staring directly at him. Finally another figure emerged. He was happier than usual to see that pregnant belly and welcoming bosom below a smiling face. Try as he might, it was impossible to note Virana’s features in any other order.

“Grandfather Senecio,” announced Tilla in her own language, stepping forward to address the figure leaning on the stick. “This is Gaius Ruso of the Petreius family from southern Gaul. He is a healer in the pay of the emperor’s Twentieth Legion.”

Ruso bowed.

“He is a man of honor, and I have chosen him to be mine,” added Tilla, as if she were challenging anyone to argue.

The strength of the voice that replied, “Good evening, Roman,” took him by surprise. Perhaps the man was not as ancient as he looked. “I am Senecio of the Corionotatae.”

The introductions that followed seemed oddly formal in the murk of a round house smelling of smoke and sheep and whatever was in the pot, but the man betrayed no obvious sign of craziness. Conn was now standing by his father’s chair. He had the same strong features and curly hair as his father, but although he was not gray, the sour downturn of his mouth made him look almost as old. His young wife, still unsmiling, was called Enica. Branan grinned at Ruso through the wet snakes of hair, revealing dimples and a gap between his front teeth. Ruso decided he liked Branan.

The names of the rest-the man with one eye, the tall thin man, the woman with the thick brows who lisped when she spoke, the one with nothing remarkable about her, the gaggle of wide-eyed children-were swept out of his memory by the thought that the adults only had to reach up to seize scythes and pitchforks and . . .

. . . And he must pull himself together. They probably always looked fierce. Who wouldn’t in a place like this? Besides, it was surely bad etiquette to murder guests, even in Britannia.

After the introductions there was a lot of shuffling about as everyone settled themselves around the hearth. Conn’s wife, still giving the impression that she was not enjoying this, placed him next to Tilla. The animal pelt covering the bench tickled the backs of his legs. The bench rocked as Virana lowered herself down onto the other end of it.

Senecio said, “We hear you rescued a man from the fallen rocks.”

“Yes.”

“First the sky is against you with the rain, and now the earth.”

Ruso hoped the old man wasn’t going to veer off into craziness. Or religion. There were stories of him yelling at thunderstorms as well as singing to trees. “It is good of you to invite us.”

“Darlughdacha is very much like her mother,” said Senecio, reaching for a cup made of turned wood. “We have been recalling good friends long gone. Her mother and I were very close at one time.”

It felt strange to hear Tilla called by her native name. As though this man had some sort of ancient claim upon her. Meanwhile Enica scowled at Tilla as if looking like one’s mother were some sort of crime.

The man continued. “Friends are always welcome at my hearth.”

“And at ours, Grandfather,” put in Tilla. “When we have one.”

“Yes,” said Ruso again, putting an arm around his wife in a gesture that he hoped looked protective, and not as if he were clinging to her for support.

“Soldiers have no homes,” Conn said, looking round at the household as if he were explaining something new. “This is why they do not understand what it is to turn people off their land.”

Tilla said, “My husband’s family has a farm in the south of Gaul. His brother looks after it.”

“The south of Gaul?” Senecio raised one white eyebrow. “I hear the land there is very dry in the summer.”

“There is not much rain,” Ruso agreed.

“How many cows do you have?”

“Just the one.” Aware that the Britons would think he was a pauper, he added, “We have a lot of vines and olives. Some . . .” He turned to Tilla for the native word, then realized there wasn’t one. “Some peaches,” he said, “and a little wheat.”

“Wine and oil,” Senecio mused. “You can feed a family on these things?”

“We sell them.” Not very profitably.

“Ah.” It was Senecio’s turn to explain to his audience. “The Romans have to use coins,” he explained, “because they cannot feed themselves on what they grow.”

Conn said, “This is why they come here wanting our good land to grow real food on.”

Ruso felt Tilla’s thigh press up against his own. He wanted to tell her not to worry. If they wanted to score points at his expense, he would put up with it. It was only one evening, and if these people were gullible enough to believe that he had been lured away from the sunny vineyards of southern Gaul by windswept grass and reedy bogs, nothing he said would change their minds.

He waited for the next challenge, but instead Senecio said, “You have a good understanding of our tongue, healer. This is not usual in a foreigner.”

Ruso put a hand on Tilla’s knee. Perhaps they really were clinging to each other for support. “I have a good teacher.”

“That is as well. We do not speak Latin in this house.”

“Never mind!” put in a cheery voice from the other end of the bench. “Now my mistress is here, she can teach you!”

Tilla hissed, “Sh!” and Virana subsided with, “But I was only saying-”

“Sh!”

Ruso was fairly sure that there was a difference in British between We do not speak Latin and We cannot speak Latin. Perhaps Senecio too wanted to lay down some boundaries.

Senecio handed his cup to Enica. As she poured the beer, he reached back and squeezed her thigh.

This was unexpected. Either Ruso had made the wrong assumption about Enica and Conn, or he had at last found evidence of Julius Caesar’s assertion that the Britons shared their wives. Was that what very traditional meant? He hoped he wasn’t expected to share his own wife. Or, indeed, anyone else’s.

Senecio took a gulp and held the cup out. Enica, whom Ruso no longer knew how to place, took it and brought it across to him. Ruso nodded his thanks. As he drank he could hear Virana whispering, “Why don’t they want to learn Latin?”

Tilla murmured, “I think they already know some.”

“Then why will they not speak it to the master?”

It was Tilla’s turn with the beer. When the cup had gone back to the old man, Ruso heard, “Because they want to stay Corionotatae.”

“But they are Corionotatae.”

“They don’t want the children to forget where they come from.”

“But how will they get by without-”

Tilla’s “Sh!” almost covered the sound of Senecio’s announcement that it was time to eat and that their guest should be served first.

Enica stepped forward again.

Virana hauled herself up from the bench. “I’ll do it!”

Enica paused, ladle in hand, and looked to the old man for instruction.

Tilla seized Virana by the wrist. “Sit down!”

“But you said I was to help!”

“Enica will do it.”

Virana pushed her hair out of her eyes and slumped back down. “I never know what helping I’m supposed to do and what other people are there for.”

Moments later Enica had done her duty and Ruso had realized that she must be the old man’s wife, and Branan’s mother, and that was perhaps why she was less than thrilled at her husband inviting the daughter of his old flame to eat with them. By the time he had worked this out he found himself with his own beer and nursing a thick wooden bowl filled with stew at the temperature of molten lava.

He had assumed the woman would go on to serve everyone else, but instead she served only Senecio and then stepped back. Senecio gestured to him to begin. Evidently the foreign guest was expected to eat first.

Ruso glanced around. He had attended all manner of dinner parties, most of them reluctantly, but never before had he been expected to put on a display of eating for the rest of the diners. Tentatively, he licked the bottom of the spoon.

A child’s voice declared, “He doesn’t like it.”

Someone said, “Sh!”

“Give him a chance!” hissed Branan.

He glanced at Tilla. She made a small scooping motion with one hand. Was this some sort of a test? Tilla had urged him to eat. He must not let her down. He lifted the spoon again.

There was a soft shuffle of feet and fabric as his audience shifted to get a better view, and he was struck by the thought that they might be trying to poison him.

The edge of the spoon seemed cooler now.

There was a brief moment between the tasting and the burning, a further brief moment in which he thought that a gulp of air would help, and then the pain in his mouth was gnawing its way down his throat and into his chest.

“It’s very good!” he gasped. “Very-” He must have snatched at his beer, because much of it seemed to miss his mouth and course down his chin.

“Very good!” he repeated, wondering if the Britons knew the story of the Roman prisoner who had died after being force-fed with molten gold.

“He likes it!” declared someone.

He saw smiling faces at last. The child who said, “He made a mess!” was ignored, and Enica busied herself serving everyone else. So he probably hadn’t been poisoned, then. But if he thought the difficult part was over, he was wrong. Senecio had been softening him up.

“We hear, healer, that you are a friend of the emperor.”

Gods above, how had that rumor reached the ears of an old man in a mud hut? It was the last thing Tilla would have told anyone, even if it were true. And it was the last thing he wanted these people to believe. Ruso emerged from another swig of beer and said, “Not exactly, sir. We have met.”

“I have another fine and handsome son waiting for me in the next world, sent there by the emperor’s men during the troubles.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir,” said Ruso, who was not supposed to have seen the security report.

“My family and I would like to know,” said Senecio, “why the emperor wants to build a wall across our land.”

A list of possible answers scurried around Ruso’s mind and were chased away by the burning in his throat. The official reason, to separate the Romans from the barbarians, made no sense. There were barbarians on both sides, and army posts too. To collect customs tolls? To defend the land? To fix the limits of the empire? To give the troops something to do? To mark Hadrian’s footsteps in a province where a new city-his usual legacy-would be as useful as a straw spear? None of it sounded convincing in the face of a man who had lost a son and half his farm, and he certainly wasn’t going to repeat the common view amongst the men, who believed the wall was an admission that Britannia would never be fully brought under Roman control.

“It is the fault of the Northerners,” put in Tilla. “If they stayed at home and kept their hands off other people and their property, there would be no need for a wall.”

Senecio nodded. “Your family was a great loss to us all, child.” He turned to Ruso. “And you, do you think the great Emperor of Rome was troubled by the Northerners killing our people and stealing our cattle?”

Ruso doubted that Hadrian was in the least bit troubled, but he was not going to say so. “If it stops the raiding, it will be a useful thing for everyone.”

“Oh, it’ll stop that all right,” put in Conn. “It’ll stop farmers getting their animals to pasture, and families from visiting, and traders from going to market.”

Ruso took another long swallow of beer while somebody said something he did not catch.

“Gateways?” sneered Conn. “They’re miles apart!”

Everyone wanted to join in now. The conversation shifted around the hearth, and Ruso had a few moments to finish his own drink and most of Tilla’s while trying to convince himself that his throat was not swelling shut. Around him there were complaints about the stream, which as far as he could make out had turned undrinkable lower down since the landslide and . . . something about the soldiers buying up all the food and damaging field walls and leaving gates open. Tilla was looking uncomfortable, and he wondered if they grumbled like this every evening or whether it was for his benefit. If it was, they needed to enunciate more clearly.

The one-eyed man was complaining about a cart that the soldiers had borrowed and damaged.

“You told us they paid for that,” put in someone else.

The one-eyed man said that was not the point. Ruso, struggling to maneuver a chunk of vegetable onto his spoon, was fairly certain he heard, “You said it was falling apart anyway.”

Senecio stepped in. “As you see, my people are not slow to join an argument.”

Ruso said, “I didn’t mean to start one.”

The old man gave a dramatic sigh. “It is the tragedy of these islands. Our tribes saw Rome coming and, instead of uniting, the leaders fell to quarreling amongst themselves.”

Ruso tried to form a facial expression that showed he was paying attention. He felt slightly detached from what was going on, but he was not drunk enough to offer opinions on the Britons.

“So now,” Senecio said, “your people and ours must live side by side until Rome decides to go away again.”

“Yes.” The old man must have been disappointed when the building started; it was clearer than ever now that his people were in for a long wait.

Senecio said, “There should be no more killing.”

“I agree.” Ruso raised his beer cup in approval, but the old man had not finished.

“Marriages between our women and your men are not always successful.”

Not sure how this was connected with killing, Ruso said, “My wife and I have known each other a long time.” He was still just about sober enough to censor whereas you only met her last week.

Senecio raised his own cup. “Mara’s daughter has made her choice. Until your people leave our land, healer, we will look for ways to live together.”

Ruso drank, relieved that he was safe here but hoping the old man did not imagine he was talking to someone with any power to agree to anything. Even the blankets and buckets that he had made the absent Candidus order had failed to turn up. He realized now how unimportant that was. The Legion seemed a long way away and curiously irrelevant. He could not remember why the emperor had bothered coming here in the first place. He understood completely why the Britons were baffled and irritated by the army’s interference. They should all stop quarreling. It was all remarkably simple. There was no need for fighting. They should respect each other. If they all gathered together around warm hearths to share peace and beer, there would be no need for a wall.

As the murmur of conversation rose around him again, Tilla said, “You did well. He likes you.”

“Good.” He wondered how long it would be before he could eat comfortably again.

She scooped up a spoonful and drew back as it touched her lips. “Ach! This is still hot! Is this why you spilled the drink?”

He said, “I didn’t want to spit it out.”

“They would have thought you were rude,” she agreed. “Now they just think you are a man who is desperate for beer.”