Terra Incognita

63

The hunt for Rianorix had begun in the early morning when the men assigned to surveillance of his house realized he had been out of sight down at the stream with the water buckets for a very long time. They had then wasted time in a desperate search for him, before looking in the sack dumped in the grass behind the house and realizing they were in even bigger trouble than they thought.

Ruso’s participation in the search had begun with his joining the huntsmen and dogs at the east gate for a considerable amount of milling around to no apparent purpose, followed by a ride out to the last sighting, the grim and secret discovery of the head of Felix the trumpeter, more milling around, and finally much excitement and galloping about. They had leaped over walls and ditches, plunged down steep slopes, picked their way through forests, and bowed flat to duck under the branches that scraped along helmets and plucked at clothes. They had thundered across open fields and followed hidden trails only to find that their quarry had doubled back, waded off through the stream, or gone around in circles.

Rianorix was never sighted. The dogs became tired and distracted as the trail grew fainter. Finally huntsmen, horses, and hounds beat a weary and mud-splattered retreat in search of a hot meal, but not until they had returned to the start of the chase and reexamined Rianorix’s home. A small cart in an outbuilding was deemed worth stealing, as was his ancient pony. Some of his clothes found their way into the cavalrymen’s saddlebags before his home was burned, his gates torn down and trampled in the mud, and his fences knocked flat. The men who knew what had been found on the grass behind the house had been sworn to silence on pain of death. They were the ones who led the destruction and neither Metellus nor Ruso made any effort to restrain them.

The rain had stopped but the light was fading by the time they reached the fort. Ruso glanced back at the horizon and saw a thick smudge of black smoke rising into the evening sky. He thought of Rianorix and Tilla curled up together like kittens on the bracken bed, and of the severed head of a man who had betrayed his lover. And he felt sorry for Thessalus, willing to sacrifice himself for a man who could commit such a hideous murder. He felt sorry for him, but he was not going to back up his lies. Ruso would tell the truth, Rianorix would be rightly executed according to the law, Thessalus would die peacefully in Veldicca’s house, and Veldicca… Veldicca would survive somehow. Women did.

He groped behind him, checking that the blanket containing the gruesome evidence was still firmly strapped on. He knew now that Felix had died from a massive fracture to the back of the skull: one that could have been inflicted with the stone he had found in the alley. The neatness of this discovery brought no satisfaction.

Ruso shifted in the saddle and shivered. There was scant warmth in leather riding breeches on a wet day, and the rain had soaked through patches in his cloak and chilled his shoulders. He would be glad to get back to the fort, and to hand over his grim burden for secret cremation.

Metellus was riding beside him with a smile playing on his lips. Despite failing to catch Rianorix, the man seemed to think they had done a fine day’s work.