Terra Incognita

36

This is where it all started, sir,” said Ingenuus, pausing beneath the sagging awning outside Susanna’s snack bar. “The night before last. Felix was at this table here…” He led Ruso in and indicated a corner table. “We were over on the other side. If only the beer hadn’t run out, we’d have been here to help.”

The elderly woman now sitting at the table of the ill-fated Felix repaid Ruso’s interest with a scowl.

He eyed the rest of the customers seated in the very plain surroundings of the snack bar. There was no sign of Tilla or Lydia. Nor were there any workmen snatching a quick bite to eat. Not a single loafer was idling away the morning with a jug of Susanna’s unexpectedly good wine. Instead… he turned to Ingenuus. “Is there something I don’t know?” he murmured, wondering if Ingenuus’s insistence on a midmorning snack was about to violate some local custom.

“What sort of thing, sir?” asked Ingenuus, unhelpfully.

Ruso leaned close to the big man’s ear and hissed, “They’re all women.”

The bandager, unembarrassed, surveyed the occupants of the tables across the top of his box. “Never mind sir, I expect they’ve left us some food.” He headed for the counter. “Watch out, ladies!” He lifted the box to clear the head of the elderly woman, who clutched at the bundle on the table in front of her as if she feared he would steal it.

Ruso reluctantly followed his assistant along a path created by a hurried shifting of stools and skirts and shopping baskets and small children.

“This is Susanna,” announced Ingenuus.

“Susanna who serves the best food in town,” she corrected from behind the counter, as if this were part of her name. “Hello again, Doctor!” She nodded toward the tables. “You’ve got a good crowd to see you today.”

“To see me?”

Before Ruso could digest this unwelcome news, Ingenuus put in, “Susanna can tell you all about it, sir. Felix was sitting there minding his own business and the native came in-”

“What can I get you, sirs?” interrupted Susanna.

“We’ve just come for a quick bite to eat,” said Ruso, whose appetite seemed to have scuttled into a distant corner at the sight of all these female patients. “And I was hoping for a word with Tilla.”

“So was I,” said Susanna. “When you find her, tell her that her friend upstairs could do with some company.” She gestured toward the trays of pastries and sausages laid out behind her, beyond the reach of prying fingers. “So. What can I get you? More of that Aminaean wine, doctor?”

“Just a splash,” said Ruso, not wanting to be accused of practicing while drunk.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, sir,” said Susanna. “To tell you the truth, Doctor Thessalus wasn’t very keen on us serving it.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. Gambax said not to put it out when he was here because he wouldn’t approve.”

Ruso hoped there was not some new and disappointing discovery about the dangers of Aminaean wine that had reached Coria before it reached the Twentieth Legion’s medics. It seemed unlikely, but now he came to think of it, the wine had had an alarming effect on Claudia, who had never thrown anything heavier than a shoe at him before.

He ordered some nameless pastry thing by pointing at it. He felt he should do something about Lydia, but he did not know what. He wished he could find Tilla. Women were better at that sort of thing and besides, while he was housed in the infirmary, she would have little else to do.

Ingenuus was busy surveying the room. “Short staffed today?” he asked.

“Dari’s gone to visit her mother,” said Susanna. “She may be back, she may not.”

“She’d better be back. She was the best girl you had.”

“I’m sure you thought so,” agreed Susanna. “But I hire girls to serve food, not flirt with the customers. This is a respectable family eating house.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a bit of innocent arm wrestling.”

Ruso’s efforts to picture an arm-wrestling waitress distracted him from the conversation, to which he returned as Ingenuus was indignantly assuring Susanna that, “I’m not telling everyone. I’m telling the doctor because he’s interested. He asked to see Felix before he was cremated. Didn’t you, sir?”

Ruso opened his mouth to explain about the postmortem, but Ingenuus had moved on.

“And you know what that ruckus was just now? A bunch of natives helping themselves to two of our horses! Broad daylight! I tell you, ever since that Stag Man started appearing, they think they own the place. Next they’ll be-ow! Is there something the matter, sir?”

Ruso lifted his boot from Ingenuus’s large toes. “We haven’t got time to talk,” he said, handing over the money for whatever it was Susanna had just placed in a wooden bowl and handed to him. “We need to eat and get across to the clinic.”

“Well,” put in Susanna, “if the Stag Man comes, we can count on you boys to defend us, can’t we?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” said Ruso, hoping he was right.

The mystery food item turned out to be some sort of cheesecake. In between licking his fingers, he explained quietly to Ingenuus that it was not a good idea to speculate in public about the murder and the Stag Man. “We don’t want to make people worried.”

“But I wouldn’t be making them worried, sir,” Ingenuus protested. “They’re worried already.”