“Excuse me if I do,” said Metellus, pouring himself a glass. “Aminaean,” he said, holding the glass up to the light. “I wish I could say we were celebrating the return of a missing object, but our searches continue.” The flames of the lamps stretched and swayed in the glass as he lifted it to his lips.
Tilla was right. Something about Metellus really did remind Ruso of a snake. “When I spoke to you earlier—”
Metellus smiled. “You didn’t mention that you’d chased off a gang of natives single-handed this morning. Well done. It’s a pity we can’t make more of a fuss over you, but we don’t want to spread yet another tale to frighten the good folk of Coria.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about,” said Ruso, who had been so concerned about Tilla earlier that the natives in the back alley had completely slipped his mind. Evidently the victim had decided to report the incident himself.
“This Stag Man business has the locals very overexcited,” explained Metellus. “They’re starting to compete at army baiting, and of course every exploit adds to his reputation. This seems to have been a bunch of amateurs—which doesn’t diminish your achievement, of course. You wouldn’t have known that when you took them on.”
“I want to talk about Tilla.”
“And all over the theft of a hen, apparently. Any excuse.”
Ruso felt he could not let that one pass. He said, “The natives thought they had a grievance.”
Metellus shook his head. “There’s a system for making complaints, Ruso. We have no thefts of hens reported. I checked.”
“About Tilla—”
“How are you getting on with Thessalus?”
“I’m trying to find out what he actually did do that night, but that’s proving a problem. Apparently he was out till dawn on a call, but my man can’t track down where.”
“Really? I wouldn’t worry about it. Just confirm that he’s insane.”
“I’ll keep looking,” said Ruso. This was not the time to argue about who controlled the contents of military medical records. “About Tilla. I brought her to you as a witness for a simple identification, Metellus. We had an agreement that if you had any difficulty with her, you would get ahold of me. I want to know why that didn’t happen.”
“She refused to identify anyone.”
“Then she was telling the truth. I was out in the yard that night as well. It was pitch dark and pelting with rain. I wouldn’t have recognized my own brother.”
Metellus gestured toward the flagon. “Are you quite sure you don’t want a drink?”
“I don’t want a drink; I want an apology. It’s no wonder you have trouble with the natives if this is how they’re treated when they’re offering to help.”
Metellus gave a sigh that sounded almost like regret, sat down and motioned Ruso to one of the other folding stools. He waited until they were both seated before saying, “What has she said to you about Rianorix?”
“I told you. She knows him. She says he’s innocent.”
“I see.”
“You weren’t able to crack him with your questioning, were you?”
“Not this time.”
“Then maybe she’s right. You should be looking for somebody else.”
“Yes, Doctor,” said Metellus, in a tone that reminded Ruso of a medic thanking a patient for some wildly inaccurate attempt at self-diagnosis. “I have thought of that. Which is why my men and I have already spoken to everyone who heard the argument in the bar that night, including the merchant couple and the men from Vindolanda, and confirmed their whereabouts later on.”
“How about Gambax?”
“And Gambax, although it’s hard to imagine why he should want to make a native sacrifice of one of his comrades anyway.”
“I’ve been told Felix was seen with some sort of list of debtors at the bar.”
Metellus frowned. “Really?”
“Audax didn’t mention finding it on the body. If the killer got rid of it, then we should assume it was somebody who owed him money. So it wasn’t Rianorix. Rianorix was asking him for payment.”
Metellus brushed invisible dandruff off his shoulders. “I wasn’t aware that the prefect had given you permission to investigate, Ruso.”
“Perhaps it was nothing to do with the bar. Perhaps the argument happening on the same night was just a coincidence.”
“I suppose Tilla suggested that?”
“No, I just thought of it.”
Metellus savored a sip of wine before replying. “Tell me. How much do you know about this Tilla?”
Ruso frowned. “She’s my housekeeper. She’s been living with me since October.”
“Inside the fort at Deva?”
“She couldn’t do her job outside.”
“And before that? What do you know about her background?”
Ruso explained about the cattle raid, Tilla’s abduction from her burning home into slavery with the Votadini tribe in the north, and her arrival in Deva. The silence with which Metellus listened made him uneasy. Finally he stopped talking and said, “Are you waiting to tell me something?”
The aide exhaled very slowly, as if he was taking the time to think what to say. “The girl you know as Tilla,” he said, “is going under an assumed name.”
“I know that. The other one’s too bloody difficult to pronounce.”
“I didn’t realize who she was until you brought her in this afternoon. She wouldn’t remember me, but her family lived about an hour’s walk northeast of here. Known troublemakers and notorious cattle thieves. The raid she told you about did happen, but it was a retaliation from the Votadini tribe after a great deal of provocation.”
Evidently there were some details Tilla had chosen not to pass on.
Metellus said, “Has she mentioned Rianorix before?”
“Not till he turned up and caused a stir at my clinic,” said Ruso. “He tried to flirt with her so I sent her out.”
Metellus frowned. “Why not send him out instead?”
“He was a patient. It was a clinic, not a classroom.”
“What did they talk about?”
Ruso shrugged. “I don’t know. They were speaking their own language.”
“Interesting.”
“Not really,” insisted Ruso. “If I could speak the language I wouldn’t have her as a translator, would I? And if he’s an old friend they would have things to talk about. Just because she happens to be Brigante—”
“Corionotatae, actually.”
“Who?”
“Not exactly Brigante. There’s a difference.”
“Well, whatever she is, it doesn’t make her a traitor,” said Ruso, beginning to wonder what else Tilla had not fully explained to him.
Metellus nodded. “True enough. So you didn’t know they’d spent the night together?”
“What?”
Metellus smiled. “No, I can see you didn’t. Sorry.”
“She was staying with her uncle!”
“When we went to arrest Rianorix last night, we found them curled up together like kittens.”
Metellus’s mouth was opening and closing and words were coming out, but Ruso’s mind was too busy repeating,
So you didn’t know they’d
spent the night together?
to take them in. “She was with her uncle,” he insisted. “It must have been somebody else,” but even as he said it, he was aware that Tilla’s use of Latin tenses was loose to the point where
I am
staying with my uncle
could mean
I have stayed with my uncle
,
I will stay with
my uncle,
or indeed,
I want you to think I am staying with my uncle but in fact
I am doing exactly as I please.
Metellus had stopped talking and was looking at him as if waiting for a response.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, she had regular access to military information—”
Ruso began to object, but Metellus continued, “She was on the loose in the yard when the sabotage took place, and she was heard talking to someone.”
“We’ve been through this already,” retorted Ruso. “Never mind what her family were. Tilla’s a midwife, for heaven’s sake. Midwives don’t go around causing traffic accidents.”
“Midwives are able to enter the houses of strangers, move about at all hours, and disappear at short notice with no questions asked.”
“That’s ridiculous. And whatever she saw in the yard, it took her by surprise.”
“Perhaps.”
“I was there,” insisted Ruso, beginning to wonder if he had been as blind to reality in the yard as he had been to the real nature of the exchange in the clinic. “She told me she was praying to her gods.” It sounded less convincing the more he said it. “Rianorix is an old friend of her family.”
“Oh, he is,” agreed Metellus. “And much more to her, from what I hear. Which makes her an unreliable witness and a dubious companion for a legionary officer.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“Please don’t shout, Doctor. My men are discreet but you never know who else is listening.”
Ruso ran one hand through his hair and wished Tilla were here to tell him none of this was true. That Metellus had been misinformed. Instead, all he could hear her saying was,
You are mistaken about this. I am not
a friend of the army.
“I still think she was telling the truth when she said she couldn’t identify anyone,” he said.
“Perhaps,” agreed Metellus, “But frankly, I wasn’t convinced we had many likely candidates in the lineup this time. That was why I didn’t bother pressing her.”
“Are you saying you knew it was a waste of time anyway?”
“Not at all,” said Metellus. “You never know what witnesses will let slip while you’ve got them concentrating on something else. But your Tilla is a clever girl. If she knows about the head, she’s keeping it very quiet.”
“That’s because she doesn’t know.”
“I would have thought Rianorix would have told her. They like to boast. But perhaps he’s cleverer than he looks too.”
“What’s the matter with you people? If you think he did it, what the hell did you let him out for? Surely you’re not really so frightened of the natives that you dare not arrest a murderer?”
“We have to tread softly at the moment, Doctor, since one of our own men is widely known to have confessed. But having Rianorix out there may work to our advantage. We may just catch a few bigger fish.”
“Tilla’s not a big fish! She’s not a—” Halfway through the sentence he realized how ridiculous it sounded, but he finished it anyway. “She’s not a fish at all.”
“No, it’s often surprising what you find when you pull the net in.”
“It’s ridiculous. Lock him up. His rebel cronies aren’t going to go near him anyway while you’re sniffing around.”
“That depends on how obvious we are. My informers are very discreet.”
“Well, so far they haven’t been much use, have they?”
Metellus shook his head. “Frankly, Doctor, I didn’t expect a man of your standing to be so attached to a native slave. Although she does have a certain rustic charm. I can see why you’re so disappointed.”
Ruso gritted his teeth.
“I’m afraid she’s let us both down.”
Ruso realized he was pacing up and down Metellus’s office floor. Part of him wanted to rush off and confront Tilla. Part of him wanted to stay and prove Metellus wrong. About everything.
“Well, Rianorix hasn’t led you to the Stag Man,” he said, “And Tilla doesn’t know who or what he is either. In the meantime, do you realize what effect seeing Rianorix free is having on the men—not to mention the rest of the natives?”
“It’s not an ideal situation, I agree. As soon as you clear the path for us with Thessalus, I’ll persuade the prefect to have him rearrested.”
“You don’t think he did it!” surmised Ruso suddenly. “You’d never have let him out if you thought he could tell you where that head was.”
Metellus smiled. “Well done, Doctor. You’re right: I’m not sure that he did it. He may well just be a loudmouth. But he’s a rebel sympathizer. And he was making public threats against one of our men. In fact, you’re quite right, we are considering the possibility that it was one of his cronies seizing a chance to cause trouble. For all we know there may have been several of them: We can’t really control who’s in the streets out there after dark. I’ll try and get some names from him when we pick him up again. But someone will have to be put before the governor in three days’ time. It won’t be a local god and it certainly won’t be Doctor Thessalus. Now. You need something to take your mind off all this. Are you sure you’re not interested in hunting? Rumor has it the governor might—”
“No,” said Ruso. “Definitely not.”
“Pity,” said Metellus.
R
USO BURST OUT
of Metellus’s office with an energy that made the sentries guarding the headquarters shrine grab at their weapons. He strode across the torchlit courtyard, then turned on his heel and scrunched down the graveled street in the direction of the infirmary. He was going to see Tilla. He just needed to collect a few things on the way.
The sword swung against his thigh as Ruso shrugged on his body armor. His fingers fumbled with the buckles and thongs that joined the iron plates together. He lowered the heavy helmet onto his head and tied the strips of leather beneath the cheek pieces. He was not going to put up with any nonsense from anyone out there tonight.