Terra Incognita

16

Ruso complimented the woman on the wine when he went to pay for his food. She shook her head sadly. “It’s the last we’ll get, sir. We lost our supplier today. A terrible, terrible thing.”

“Felix?” he guessed.

She nodded. “Did you know him?”

“Not really.”

“He’ll be missed,” she said. “Always a friendly face. Whatever they say about him, we never had any trouble with him. It’s a sad way to lose a young man, like that.”

“It is,” agreed Ruso, wondering how much information had escaped from the fort. “What did happen to him, exactly?”

The woman hesitated.

“I just don’t want to say the wrong thing to his friends,” he explained.

“He was hit over the head,” she said. “His centurion found him in an alleyway over by the fort first thing this morning.”

“So have they caught the man who did it?”

She looked at him oddly. “ I don’t think so,” she said, and bent down to pick up something from behind the counter. Ruso took the hint.

Across the road, a middle-aged native with a cascade of iron gray hair was sitting outside the barber’s in the late afternoon sun, having his mustache trimmed by a barber’s slave. In the gloom of the shop behind him, a man and a woman were staring silently at the floor. The way their chairs were turned toward each other reminded Ruso of those awful social occasions-usually instigated by Claudia-where he and some stranger had run out of conversation but could not find an excuse to move apart.

As Ruso headed for the bathhouse doors, a voice called, “Good afternoon, sir!”

The man, more alert than he seemed, had sprung to his feet.

“How are you today?”

“Dirty,” said Ruso.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place, sir!” The barber was beside him now, making ushering motions with his arms as if he were hoping to round Ruso up and pen him into the shop like a sheep for shearing. “What can we do to help? Haircut? Shave?”

Ruso rubbed his chin. What he felt beneath his fingers was no longer stubble. Unfortunately, from what he had seen of the chins of the Tenth Batavians this afternoon, Hadrian’s famous beard had so far failed to inspire any imitators here. Since he was now in charge of the infirmary until the new man turned up in four days’ time, he supposed he should make an effort to resemble the Batavians’ image of an officer.

“Take a seat, sir.” The barber had trotted ahead and was indicating a stool next to the native. “Guaranteed the best in town, or your money back!”

“Just a shave,” he said, subsiding onto the stool and adding, “Take it steady, will you?” lest this should be one of those enthusiastic razor-wielders who valued speed above accuracy.

“Don’t you worry, sir!” chirped the barber, draping a stained cloth across Ruso’s chest and pulling his own stool closer. “You just close your eyes, relax, and it’ll be over in no time.”

This sounded alarmingly like the sort of thing surgeons said to patients: not because there was nothing to worry about, but because worrying would make no difference.

Ruso checked that the letter Albanus had given him was still safely in his belt, and closed his eyes.

“So,” said the barber, slapping cold water onto the doomed beard, “have you come a long way, sir?”

“Deva,” said Ruso, making no effort to stimulate the conversation since in a moment he would only be able to answer in grunts.

“Deva! Well!”

Ruso heard the water bowl being put down.

“You’ll be with the Twentieth, then, sir?”

Presumably the razor had been picked up. Just to be on the safe side, Ruso’s reply was confined to, “Uh.”

A voice close to his left ear said, “Just keep still now, sir,” and he felt the scraping begin at the lower left-hand side of his jaw. “It’s an honor to shave an officer from the legions, sir. Especially the Twentieth. It’s a grand legion, the Twentieth, isn’t it?”

“Uh.”

“A lot of people will be very pleased to have you here, sir. What with all the bother we’ve been having lately.’

Ruso, unable to explain that most of his comrades were leaving in the morning, said, “Uh.”

“We have to expect a few robbers and thieves around, I suppose, sir, don’t we? Low types too lazy to earn an honest living. And if people don’t keep an eye on their things in the bathhouse, they’ve only got themselves to blame, haven’t they? But it comes to something when the roads aren’t safe to travel in daylight, and now an innocent man’s been horribly murdered right in the middle of-”

“Festinus!”

The rich bass voice could only have come from the native. Ruso opened his eyes, but his head was being held over to one side and all he could see was glinting light alternating with the shadow of a hand as the blade scratched at his left cheek.

“Festinus,” continued the voice, “don’t alarm our guest.”

In truth Ruso was less alarmed by talk of horrible murders than by the discovery that he was being shaved by a man whose nickname was Hasty.

“I’m not trying to alarm him,” said Festinus, pausing briefly to wipe his blade. “I’m just making conversation. And it’s only fair to warn visitors if there’s something funny going on. You’d rather be warned than murdered, wouldn’t you, sir?”

Ruso grunted an assent. He wished he could find a way of asking the stranger not to distract the man who was sliding a razor up under his left ear.

“Nobody knows what they did to him, but it must have been nasty. They won’t let no one see the-”

“Festinus!”

“ ’Course, I don’t expect you’ll have no bother at all, sir,” the barber continued. “I always said Felix would get into trouble one day. He was a bit too clever, sir; that was his problem.”

“No danger of you being in trouble, then, is there?” put in the woman’s voice. “Don’t you listen to him, sir. Poor Felix was a nice friendly young man. Not like some of them we get around here.”

The barber snorted. “A bit too free with his friendship, if you ask me.”

“Nobody did ask you,” pointed out the woman. “And you shouldn’t be talking like that before he’s even buried.”

The barber, ignoring her, urged Ruso to “Straighten up a little, please, sir,” just as a gray mustache appeared in his line of vision and its owner said, “Pleased to meet you, officer. Catavignus. I represent the local people in the guild of caterers.’

Ruso had the vague sensation that he had seen him somewhere before, but could not think where.

The barber paused again to wipe the razor. Ruso seized the moment to introduce himself to Catavignus, who was evidently a native who had added a Latin ending to his name.

Catavignus bowed. “Welcome to Coria, Doctor. Sorry to hear about the accident. I hope you’re not hurt?” The accent was similar to Tilla’s, but his Latin demonstrated a grasp of grammar that Tilla seemed to have decided was not worth the effort.

Ruso offered a double-barreled “Uh-uh,” and a wave of the hand to indicate that he had survived the accident unscathed.

“Good. Don’t let this blabbermouth bother you.”

The slave repositioned the stool in front of Ruso, who hoped the sudden waft of beer was coming from Catavignus and not the barber.

“If you’ll allow me to explain,” continued Catavignus, seating himself and indicating his remarkably fine head of hair to the slave, who reached for a pot of lotion. “This is a decent, law-abiding place. A safe place to run a business and raise a family. We welcome the army. Losing one of our soldiers like this is a great shock to everybody. We don’t expect that sort of thing around here.”

Evidently Catavignus’s opinion of the natives’ loyalty was much higher than that of Metellus, although Ruso supposed a lot of the residents of this decent law-abiding place wouldn’t be Britons anyway. They would be relatives of the soldiers, or veterans, or the traders Metellus was so eager to welcome in exchange for their taxes.

“The caterers are keen to help the investigation in any way we can,” continued Catavignus. “Felix was well known to all of us.”

“We’ve been over to pray to Apollo Maponus,” said the barber’s wife. “You can’t be too careful.”

“I heard it was a native what done it,” put in the barber. “Chin up, please, sir.”

Catavignus cleared his throat. “If it is, then he’s a disgrace.”

Ruso clenched his teeth as the blade scraped another channel up the underside of his chin.

“Fell out with him over at Susanna’s,” continued the barber.

“At Susanna’s?” Catavignus seemed surprised.

“I told you you should have gone and seen what that shouting was about,” put in the barber’s wife.

“I must go and speak to Susanna,” put in Catavignus, getting to his feet. “She will need the support of the guild after something like this.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” continued the woman. “I said, ‘There’s something going on over there.’ ”

“If I got up every time you heard something in the street I might as well sleep on the doorstep,” said the barber. “Besides, if I’d got involved that native might have gone for me too. He was wild, sir, that’s what I heard. Raving. Shouting about sheep. Or was it cows?” The man paused. “Perhaps it was goats.”

“Never mind what he was raving about,” retorted the woman. “The point is, if somebody had stepped in, Felix might still be alive.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault now, is it?”

Catavignus paused in front of Ruso, who was willing the barber to keep a steady hand while arguing with his wife. “Doctor. The caterers are giving a private dinner across at Susanna’s snack bar on the eve of the governor’s visit. Celebrating the start of the British summer in a modern style. We’d be honored if you’d join us.”

“Uh,” said Ruso, who had once responded to his wife’s suggestion that they attend a dinner party by pointing out that he would rather leap naked into a tankful of starving lampreys.

“We’ll look forward to it. Tell me. Are you treating civilians during your visit?”

“Uh.” Ruso did not want the complications, but he did want the money.

“I ask because my daughter Aemilia is not well. If she’s no better tomorrow, can I refer her to you?”

Ruso decided he could risk saying, “Do.”

“Thank you. I’m sure you know what these young women are like.”

“Mm,” said Ruso, not sure whether knowing what young women were like was a sign of medical competence or something less desirable.

“A pleasure to meet you,” continued Catavignus. “Call on me anytime you’re passing the brewery. Aemilia and I will be happy to welcome you.”

“There he goes. Look,” muttered the woman after he had left. “Straight over to Susanna’s. Any excuse. Well, she’ll be thrilled.”

“More slime than a bucket of slugs, that one,” said the barber. “Never turn your back on the natives, sir, that’s my advice. Even if they are in some fancy guild of caterers. They’re all the same. Women as well. Smile at your face and stab you in the back. I said to that centurion what was in here earlier, what we want around here is a few more patrols on the streets. You only ever see them marching past on the way to somewhere else. I said to him, I’ll offer free services to any man what-oops! Sorry, sir. Just put that on it for a moment, will you?’

Ruso held the cloth against the right-hand side of his jaw, removed it, assessed that the damage was not life threatening, and replaced it quickly before the blood dripped onto his clean tunic.

“Ready again, sir? Nearly done. Lean that way a minute for me, please…”

“So you’re the new doctor, sir?” inquired the woman.

“Aah.”

“Will it be you or Doctor Thessalus tomorrow at the clinic?”

“Uh?”

“Doctor Ruso,” mused the barber. “Haven’t I heard of you somewhere?”

Before Ruso could respond the woman continued, “Doctor Thessalus does a clinic here every market day, sir. It’s always very popular.”

“It’s free,” added the barber, explaining its popularity.

“Ah,” said Ruso.