Terra Incognita

46

Officer Metellus was in a meeting and could not be disturbed, neither to be asked if a visiting medic could interfere further with his murder inquiry nor to listen to complaints about the way he frightened his witnesses.

Meanwhile, Ruso and Albanus were slumped in a back alcove of Susanna’s empty snack bar, separated by a table that held two large jugs and two cups. Ruso had offered to treat his clerk to a nonmilitary supper after evening ward rounds as compensation for his wasted morning hunting for Tilla.

Albanus clearly felt this was an important occasion. He had scrubbed most of the ink off his fingers and he smelled of hair oil. “Permission to ask a question, sir?”

“Albanus, this is supper. You’re allowed to make conversation.”

“Yes, sir. What I’d like to know is, now they’ve let the native go, who really did kill the trumpeter?”

Ruso scratched one ear. “I wish I knew.”

“Was it Doctor Thessalus?”

“I hope not.”

Albanus glanced around the empty bar. “Is it true it all started in here with an argument about cows, sir?”

“Ah,” said Ruso. “I do know the answer to that one.” He took a sip of wine before commencing. “Ever since she was a little girl, Tilla’s cousin Aemilia has wanted to marry an officer.”

Not surprisingly, Albanus looked bemused.

“Bear with me. This is one of those native stories that will end up as one of the interminable ancestor songs Tilla sings in the kitchen. Apparently her family friend Rianorix, who is a mere native basket maker, proposed to this Aemilia, and she turned him down. And-according to Tilla’s sources-to sweeten the refusal, she told him she would always look on him as a kind brother. And because-again, according to Tilla- he is a softhearted fool, he swore he would always protect her as if she were his own sister. Are you seeing the connection now?”

“But Felix wasn’t an officer, sir.”

“Very good, Albanus. Aemilia set her sights on Felix, who by all accounts was very attractive to women and gave her the impression he was getting promoted any day now.” Ruso paused, making sure he had the chain of events straight in his mind. “So, when Aemilia thought she was pregnant, she announced the joyful news to him, expecting him to push for his promotion and set the wedding date.”

“Oh dear.”

“Exactly. Felix disappeared like a rat down a sewer and Aemilia turned to her sworn brother to defend her honor.”

“What about her father?”

“He didn’t approve of Felix as a suitor. He’d forbidden her to go near him. Aemilia was frightened to admit she was pregnant.”

“So Rianorix went and found Felix and murdered him?”

“Ah,” said Ruso. “That’s where Tilla’s interpretation of events diverges from everyone else’s. According to Tilla, he went privately to see Felix and explained that ’round here, a chap has to either do the decent thing or hand over five cows in compensation. After a couple of weeks with no cows and no wedding plans, Rianorix got tired of asking nicely. He began to call on the native gods to avenge Aemilia’s disgrace. He came here to make a final appeal to Felix’s honor in front of all his friends-which is what a native would do, apparently-and got thrown out. And then the gods brought judgment on Felix.”

“Are you sure this Rianorix didn’t simply bump him off to get the girl?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” said Ruso. “Although as Tilla has pointed out, if he was going to do it, why would he have announced it first? And afterward, why did he wait around to be arrested?”

“He doesn’t sound awfully bright, sir. Maybe he thought he was like the Stag Man. Invincible.”

Ruso frowned. “The Stag Man isn’t invincible, Albanus. You’re starting to sound like Tilla. He’s just a clever man with a fast horse and a bit of dead animal tied to his head.”

“Yes, sir.” Albanus reached for his drink. “Do you mind if I speak freely, sir?”

“Go ahead,” said Ruso, wondering how many other men would ask permission before allowing wine to loosen their tongues.

“I don’t blame that Aemilia girl for wanting to better herself. This isn’t much of a place, is it?”

“I’ve been in worse,” said Ruso, feeling it was his duty to try and cheer up his clerk, who had only volunteered to come with him out of personal loyalty.

“Yes, sir.” Albanus picked up a crumb from the table and rolled it between finger and thumb before flicking it away.

“I can’t actually remember when,” confessed Ruso, reaching for his drink. “But you have to admit this is rather fine wine.”

“The wine’s all right,” conceded Albanus, “and the scenery’s quite pleasant. If you’re partial to the sight of greenery. And if you don’t know all the bushes could be hiding natives with grudges and antlers. But the town isn’t up to much, is it? Have you seen that shop that says it sells everything?”

“Next to the butcher’s.”

“Yes. Well, don’t build your hopes up.” Albanus sighed. “Frankly, sir, I wish I’d brought a few more books with me.”

“I can lend you some medical texts if you’re desperate,” said Ruso, wondering how desperate a man would have to be before he would read medical books to cheer himself up. Although he supposed some doctors’ diatribes on why all their rivals were incompetent nincompoops might be mildly entertaining.

“Never mind, sir. I’ve only got another eighteen years, six months, and two days to serve.”

“That must be very comforting,” said Ruso, who was on a short-term contract with the army and could extricate himself whenever he wanted with little difficulty.

“How long have you got left, sir?”

Ruso coughed. “I haven’t counted recently. Tell me something, Albanus. If you can translate Plato and read medical texts, what are you doing in the army anyway?”

“My father made me promise not to go into teaching, sir. He said the boys are badly behaved, the parents have no respect for you, and the pay isn’t very good.”

“So he suggested you sign up for twenty-five years in the legions?”

“Looking back, sir, I don’t think my father knew very much about the modern army. I think he got all his ideas out of poetry books.”

Ruso noted with surprise that he had nearly finished his wine. “Fathers don’t always make wise decisions,” he said.

“No, sir,” agreed Albanus.

“Mine certainly didn’t.”

There was a clatter of crockery from behind the counter. Albanus looked up, then lost interest when Susanna-who-serves-the-best-food-in-town emerged with a cloth and began to wipe the tables.

It occurred to Ruso that too long in the provinces could turn a man into the sort of bore who hung around in bars telling his life story to soldiers who were too junior to escape. Thank goodness he was here with a mission. Not an official mission, since he had yet to talk to Metellus, but one he should be getting on with nevertheless.

He waited until Susanna was attacking the table next to theirs, and explained to her that he was trying to help Doctor Thessalus and would she mind answering a few questions? But before that, would she mind bringing over more of that wine?

Albanus was busy diving for the satchel that he had brought with him lest the Batavian clerks should raid it in his absence and steal his best pens.

Susanna said, “Officer Metellus already wrote everything down, sir. And that was the last of the wine.”

Ruso gestured to Albanus to put the stylus away, and as he did so something occurred to him. “Can I see the amphora?”

“It’s empty, sir, I promise you.”

“I know. I’d just like to…” He tried to think of a suitable excuse. “I used to have a friend who exported it,” he said. “If it was his I’ll write and tell him where I drank it. He’ll like that.”

Susanna, fortunately, seemed to operate by the policy that the customer was always right no matter how blatantly he was lying. Behind the counter, Ruso heaved up the heavy clay container by its handles and scanned the surface for the vintner’s mark. There, painted in long thin letters, was the expected AMIN… The writing faded into a clean patch where something else had been scrubbed off. He shook his head and expressed regret that this wine had not come from his fictitious friend. What he did not tell Susanna was that although he had no idea where it had come from, he had a very good idea of where it should have gone, and it was not into the mouths of paying customers at a snack bar. No, Susanna did not know where Felix had gotten it. She seemed surprised that anyone might have considered asking him.

“I know you’ve been through everything with Metellus,” Ruso said, making his way back to where Albanus was waiting, “but it would help me to know exactly who was in the bar the night Felix died.”

Susanna perched her ample bottom on the next table and sighed. “This is never going to end, is it?” she said. “Years of building up a respectable family business and now we’ll always be the place where the trouble started.” She spread her arms wide to indicate the bar. “Look at it. Where is everybody?”

“It’s probably not you,” suggested Albanus brightly. ‘Everyone’s frightened to be out in the evenings because of the Stag Man.”

“If you could just tell me about that night-” put in Ruso.

“He’s not real, you know,” continued Albanus. “He’s just a man with a dead thing on his head. And there are extra patrols out.”

“Fat lot of good they’re doing,” retorted Susanna.

“That night?” prompted Ruso, realizing Albanus’s sudden chattiness was inspired not only by the wine but by the appearance of the other waitress, the little mousy one he thought of-if he noticed her at all-as being “not Dari.”

Susanna flapped one hand to send the girl away and described what had started out as a normal evening: the bar crowded, the staff harassed, and the customers no ruder than usual-until by some unlucky oversight the beer ran out. At this point several of the infirmary staff who had joined Gambax to celebrate his birthday expressed their disgust and went elsewhere.

“But Thessalus didn’t go with them?”

“I should think he was glad to see the back of them,” said Susanna. “He’d been paying for everything. So then it was just him and Gambax left there.” She pointed to a table halfway across the room. “And some wagon drivers from Vindolanda next to them, and a merchant and a girl he was pretending was his wife in the corner, and Felix and his friends over by the door.”

“If I needed to know, do you have names?”

“We get to know our customers, doctor. And we look after them. Not like some places I could mention, where they’d steal the fleas off your dog.”

“Any reason why any of them might have had a grudge against Felix?”

She shrugged. “If they did, they kept it quiet.”

“So then what happened?”

There was little new in what she told him. Thessalus had been trying to persuade an unusually cheerful Gambax that it was time to go home when there was a commotion over by the door, and Rianorix was yelling abuse as he was being shoved out into the street by Felix’s cronies. Moments later he returned. Felix’s friends seemed to find this very funny, and promptly threw him out again.

“What was he shouting?”

Susanna frowned. “Something about ‘you will see what happens to men who don’t honor their debts.’ The rest of it was in British.”

That would have been the curse, presumably. “And everyone in the bar heard this going on?”

“I was out the back sorting out a new beer barrel, and I heard it.”

“The native didn’t say what he would do to Felix?”

Susanna shook her head. “I’d have remembered.”

“And then what?”

She shrugged. “And then nothing. Felix and his friends settled down, the merchant complained about the disturbance, the wagon drivers started shouting for beer, and Thessalus must have persuaded Gambax it was time to go. Thessalus is a good man, sir. I think it says a lot for a man when he’s kind to his staff like that. Taking someone out on his birthday and seeing him home. Even when you could see he wasn’t enjoying it much.”

Ruso tried to imagine himself paying for a fun evening with Gambax, and failed.

“Was Thessalus acting strangely?” he asked. “Drinking too much?”

Susanna shook her head. “He was a bit quiet. That’s all. I didn’t see him again until he came in the next day. He was in a terrible state by then. His hands were shaky and his hair was all over the place. He came up to the counter and told me he’d killed somebody. He asked whether I thought he should confess to the prefect. I told him to go back to the barracks and lie down.”

“Did you mention this to anyone else?”

“No!”

“Nobody at all?”

She fiddled with her shawl. “Well… when they arrested Rianorix later on, I thought they would know the doctor hadn’t done it. I may have mentioned it to one or two people after that.”

So that was how the story had escaped. Ruso decided not to tell Metellus that it was Susanna who had wrecked his plans for an easy conviction.

“But I told them not to tell anybody.”

“Of course.”

“He didn’t say it was a secret,” she added.

“If it was a secret,” said Ruso, feeling sorry for her, “he wouldn’t have told you, would he?”

She looked relieved.

He said, “I heard Felix was talking to Dari late that evening.”

“Dari? She didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

“Did you mention her to Metellus?”

“I didn’t want to waste his time.”

“Humor me for a moment,” said Ruso. “Waste mine.”

Susanna paused to pull the shawl forward over her hair and repin it. She said, “I think Dari owed him money. She gave him something, and I saw him get his note tablet out. Then I got rid of him. I didn’t know Rianorix was lying in wait for him, did I?”

“Of course not.”

“In the end I told him to go or he’d miss curfew.” She cleared her throat. “To tell you the truth, doctor, I was annoyed. I’ve had to speak to Dari before about standing around chatting when she’s supposed to be working.”

“So Felix was a nuisance?”

Susanna folded her arms. “I didn’t say that,” she said. “I don’t imagine he was much of a soldier, but he was good company. He had a way of talking to you as if you were the most important person he’d ever met.” She wrinkled her nose. “ ’Course, I didn’t fall for it at my age.”

“Of course not,” agreed Ruso, then wondered if he had said the wrong thing.

“Anyway,” Susanna continued in a tone that suggested he was right, “we never had any bother with him. And frankly, I’d rather have him than some of the so-called heroes we get in here trying to bully my girls.” She got to her feet. Now, gentlemen, can I get you something to eat? There’s plenty left.”

After Susanna had gone in search of food, Ruso swilled the last drop of Aminaean at the bottom of his cup and said, “Why do you think Susanna thought Gambax was telling her to hide this?”

Albanus looked blank. Ruso explained about Susanna’s belief that Gambax had told her not to serve the wine in the presence of Doctor Thessalus.

With an uncharacteristic lack of charity Albanus said, “I expect Gambax was lying because he wanted it for himself.”

Ruso grinned. “Travel has certainly changed you, Albanus.”

“Well, sir, as Socrates would have said-”

“Ruso! There you are! I’ve been waiting in that miserable bathhouse for hours!”

Ruso never found out what Socrates would have said. Standing in Susanna’s doorway was a man who should have been somewhere else entirely.