Terra Incognita

34

Thessalus was asleep. Over at the infirmary, there was no one in the office. The cobweb above the pharmacy table was gone, the wastebasket was empty, and the green pancake had been scraped off the floorboards. A lone bottle with no label rested on the desk. Ruso picked it up, removed the stopper, and sniffed at the brown powder inside.

An orderly with strands of straw caught in his hair-presumably Gambax had assigned him to stuffing mattresses-wandered in and told him the deputy had gone to fetch some stationery supplies.

No doubt finding a clean stock of labeling materials would occupy him until lunchtime. It was a pity Albanus was not here to start investigating the rest of the paperwork. Ruso put the bottle back where he had found it. Gambax seemed to know what he was doing, even if he was doing it painfully slowly. Ruso had once had the misfortune to work with an apprentice pharmacist who had decided to tear off all the labels at once, throw them into the fire, and start again.

As he left the office the trumpet sounded the next watch. There was still no sign of Albanus. Ruso would have suspected most men of deliberately spinning out his missions to find out about Thessalus’s night call and track down Tilla, but not Albanus. The clerk’s deeply rooted sense of duty would compel him to get on with the job and report back, even if it did mean facing the rest of the day in the office with Gambax. No: It was far more likely that Tilla was proving elusive.

Just as he reached this conclusion, the clerk reappeared. He was not happy.

“Every door in the town, sir,” said Albanus, slumping back against the table in the treatment room. “Every single door. And I explained that I’d been sent by an officer. In case they thought I was hunting down a runaway girlfriend.”

“Very wise.”

“I had to stop telling people you were a doctor,” he said. “Some of them wanted to tell me what was wrong with them.” He winced. “One even wanted me to look at it.”

“I know,” agreed Ruso. “That’s why I don’t tell them either.”

“A couple of them said they wouldn’t talk to me because a doctor had murdered that trumpeter they found in the alley.”

“Really?” said Ruso. Evidently Thessalus’s confession was no longer a secret. He wondered whether anybody had told Metellus.

“Then some ignorant clod in the vehicle repair shop said if I was snooping around his woman I would end up in the alley too. And some people wouldn’t talk to me at all. I suppose they were hoping for a bribe.”

“Probably,” said Ruso, wondering how the news about Thessalus had leaked out.

“But I didn’t have any money, sir,” the clerk pointed out, clearly feeling his officer did not appreciate the difficulty of the fool’s errand on which he had wasted most of the morning. “And I had no idea she might be using a native name.”

“Albanus,” said Ruso, who had forgotten to warn his clerk beforehand that Tilla’s current name had only been adopted after he met her, “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right, sir.”

“Never mind. I think neither of us knows quite how things work around here.”

“I think it helps if you’re Batavian, sir.”

This was not encouraging. “Apparently I have to go down to the bathhouse and face a clinic full of the Batavians’ friends and relations. I can’t think of a good excuse not to go.”

Albanus seemed to be on the verge of coming up with one when Gambax put his head around the door frame of the treatment room to announce that he had put together a box of the sort of medicines and dressings Doctor Thessalus usually took with him. The regular assistant was on leave but he had assigned a bandager to clinic duty. Clearly, to back out now would be a sign of weakness. No Batavian was going to be allowed to accuse him of that.

Albanus, offered a choice of activities, decided that despite his complaints he would rather resume the search for Tilla than face the ailing families of the Batavians. “While you’re out,” suggested Ruso, handing him some small change, “just listen out for any gossip about the murder, will you?”

Albanus’s eyes widened. “Are you doing another investigation, sir?”

“No,” said Ruso. “I’m just trying to help Doctor Thessalus. Officer Metellus is… it’s ah… it’s just that there seem to be some rumors going around that may be…”

He stopped. If he told Albanus the rumors were false, the clerk would quite reasonably want to know what the truth was. And since almost everything about this wretched business was supposed to be a secret, Ruso would not be able to tell him. Finally he said, “What have you heard?”

Albanus was apologetic. He had not heard anything new, apart from the suggestion that a doctor had been the murderer, which was obviously ridiculous. “And I spoke to lots of gate guards but I still can’t find anyone who remembers what time Doctor Thessalus came back in that night, sir. Or where he went. Several of them told me where I could go, though. I’m not doing very well, am I?”

“Never mind,” said Ruso. “Have you mentioned any of this to anybody?”

Albanus observed glumly that he didn’t know anybody to mention anything to.

“Good. Don’t discuss the murder. Just let me know anything you happen to pick up.”