Aemilia.
Aemilia and her husband were not offended. Not at all. She had not complained about coming all this way for a wedding that nobody had told them was canceled, because everybody had been very busy and she could see that sending a message to a long-lost cousin was not very important. Now they had come across from their lodgings to see that lovely husband of hers and tell him he was a hero but they could not see him because everyone else had already visited and worn him out. Which was a shame, but just another one of those things.
“No it’s not,” put in her husband, not bothering to look up from his beer. “It’s bloody annoying.”
Aemilia told him he needn’t be so grumpy just because Ria’s beer wasn’t as good as their own.
“The brewery is doing very well,” she told Tilla. “We’re expanding. We’ve left one of our freedmen in charge, but we really can’t stay away any longer if there isn’t a wedding.”
“So tell me,” said Aemilia’s husband, looking at Tilla over his cup, “is there a body in the wall or not?”
Their eyes met. He was still handsome, if a little more creased around the eyes and thicker around the waist. Tilla wondered briefly what would have happened if she had married him and not the man lying in the bed upstairs. It had been possible, before the Northerners’ raid on her family’s farm had changed her life forever. Now she could not even answer his simple question truthfully. But neither could she bring herself to lie to him. Instead she offered the biggest distraction she could think of.
“You have not come all this way for nothing,” she said. “There will be a wedding. I will ask my father.”
Rianorix frowned. “Your what?”
“Senecio,” she explained, then paused. These people knew the ages of her brothers. To tell this story was to betray her mother. But then, had her mother not betrayed the man she had married—the man everyone had thought was Tilla’s father? But before she could say more, Aemilia asked, “You know, I’m sure Daddy once said something about your mam and a stranger from over in the hills.”
“People knew?” Tilla sank back against the wall, feeling the ground of her childhood slip beneath her once more. “What did he say?”
But Aemilia could not remember the details. “It was a long time ago,” she said, waving it off with a flick of the hand. “I never thought anything of it.”
Tilla looked from one to the other of them. “Why did nobody ever tell me?”
Aemilia’s husband poked his forefinger into his beer and hooked something out. “Perhaps the same reason you won’t tell me there’s a body in wall,” he said.
Chapter 73
The rest of the day of Ruso’s return had passed between sleep and pain and, blurring the two, regular doses of poppy tears administered by Tilla. Several times she tried to ask him questions, but when he tried to grasp them they slid away, so he decided to answer, “Yes,” to everything and sort it out later. The tribune came back. He wanted to talk about Mallius and Daminius, Tilla and Conn. Ruso could not remember what he was supposed to say, or even exactly what he knew, so he pretended to be more ill than he felt. It was surprisingly easy once you started to pay attention to every little twinge and gurgle. He even began to convince himself until he realized this was probably how Fabius started. At other times he lay alone, hearing distant voices and the clatter of crockery from Ria’s kitchen, thinking about what had happened and deciding he must get up. But not just yet. He would just lie here for a moment longer, letting his tongue explore the tender gap where his tooth used to be.
He did not wake until well past dawn.
“Sit down, man. You look as though you should be in your own hospital.”
Ruso gratefully lowered the salute and persuaded the muscles that had stiffened up overnight to let him sink back onto Ria’s bench. He hoped the legate and the tribune would go away soon so he could tackle the bowl of honeyed porridge that steamed in front of him. He had woken very hungry but unable to chew anything.
The legate said, “I hear you saved the boy single-handed.”
“Not really, sir,” he confessed. “I had quite a lot of help.”
“Well, well done anyway.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’ll be pleased to hear that the boy’s identified Mallius as the kidnapper. We’ve got him locked up and the natives seem to have calmed down at last.”
“That’s good, sir.” Did senior officers tire of the bland statements they heard in response to their speeches? Or did they simply ignore them, like the bleating of sheep? At least the man had taken the trouble to visit and congratulate him. It was an honor, and one Ruso wished he felt well enough to appreciate.