Terra Incognita

30

Tilla was retrieving her share of the narrow blanket when the door caved in.

For an absurd moment she thought it was the medicus come to wreak revenge on them. Then she knew Trenus had come back to kill her, yelling, “Don’t move!”-in Latin?

Something fell over with a crash. Torches advanced, light glancing off the straight lines of weapons and curves of helmets. The point of a sword was cold against her throat. Next to her, Rian tried to get up and was pushed down again.

“Rianorix the basket maker?” demanded a quiet voice from beyond the torchlight.

His agreement was hoarse.

“Get up. And tell us where it is.”

“He has done nothing wrong!” cried Tilla, grabbing his arm and trying to hold him down beside her.

Soldiers had seized the other arm. Rianorix, naked apart from the gleaming white stripes of bandage, was on his feet. She heard the rattle of chains.

“Don’t hurt him!”

The soldier with his sword at her throat hooked the toe of his boot under the blanket. “Move over, love.”

Rianorix’s shout of “Leave her alone!” was followed by a sickening crack as someone swung a weapon against the side of his head. The basket maker reeled. The quiet voice said, “Where is it?”

Tilla said, “Where is what?”

A couple of the soldiers were pulling down baskets from the creaking stock pile and flinging them aside. Others were clambering through them to prod the thatch with spears. Someone tipped over the beer barrel and the contents hissed and spat and stank across the hearth in the middle of the floor.

The soldier was grinning down at Tilla. The blade was withdrawn from her throat. She scrambled upright, pulling the blanket around herself and wishing she were wearing proper clothes instead of one of Rian’s old shirts. The soldier, still keeping the sword pointed toward her, kicked apart the pile of bracken that had made the bed. “Where is it, eh?”

“What?”

“What you took.”

“We have done nothing wrong!” She was about to say, “I will tell my master how you have behaved!” when she realized that if she told them who her master was, they would tell him where they had found her. Instead she said, “Please do not hurt him, sir.”

“That’s better,” said the soldier, patting her bottom with the flat of his sword. “Now, save yourself a lot of bother and tell the nice officer where it is.”

Another man in a better uniform stepped forward. The torchlight made the blond in his hair gleam. When he spoke she knew he was the quiet one in charge. “I remember you,” he said. “You used to live here.”

She did not care whether he thought he knew her or not. “Why are you arresting us?”

“Not you,” he said. “We only want the basket maker. And what he has stolen.”

“But he is a good man! He pays his taxes, he keeps the law-” At least, she supposed he did. More or less. It could not be illegal to fast against someone, surely?

“He is accused of the murder of a member of the emperor’s auxiliary forces.”

As Tilla was protesting that they were wrong, she heard Rian’s voice from the doorway. “Felix? Felix is dead?”

“You should know,” said the quiet one.

“Yes!” The chains rattled as Rianorix tried to fling his hands in the air, was pulled up short, and stumbled sideways. It did not stop him from laughing. “He’s dead, daughter of Lugh! Dead! The gods have answered!”

“Get out!” retorted one of the soldiers, giving him a kick in the direction of the door.

Tilla ducked around the soldier who was supposed to be guarding her and ran across to cling to Rianorix, pretending to kiss him good-bye. A couple of the soldiers cheered.

“It worked!” whispered Rianorix as more hands reached in through the entrance of the house and dragged his pale form away into the dark while others held her back.

“The gods killed that soldier!” she shouted after them. “They will kill all of you if you hurt their favored one!”

“Oh, those lads won’t hurt him, miss,” her guard assured her. “We’ve got experts back at base who do that.” He seized her bruised arm and pushed her backward, his foul breath in her face. “Back to bed, eh?”

“Leave her,” ordered the quiet one.

“Won’t be a minute, sir.”

“I said, leave her.”

The man flung Tilla down on the bracken bed and growled, “Tart.”

The officer was already out of the house by the time the soldier kicked a brand out of the fire and into the jumble of baskets by the door.

She would have run after them, but by the time she had put out the flames and rescued what remained of Rian’s stock, she was exhausted and the soldiers were long gone.

She had used the blanket to beat out the fire. Now she retrieved her damp clothes from the chair, wriggled into them, and huddled by the hearth, afraid to sleep lest the scorched thatch begin to smoulder again.

There was a long cold night ahead. The only very small consolation was that under the guise of that desperate kiss, she had managed to slip the last apple into Rianorix’s hand and whisper, “No need to fast now. You are right. The gods have woken.”