Tabula Rasa(26)

“So these were people you’d met before?”

“That’s the thing, sir. They was all right when I went to see the pups the first time. Then they turned nasty. I told them, ‘Keep the money.’ I said, ‘I don’t want no trouble,’ but they didn’t listen. I tried to put up a bit of a fight, sir, but there was lots of them.” He gazed down at his feet. “Will I walk again, sir?”

“I don’t see why not,” Ruso assured him.

Regulus retrieved one hand and rubbed his wet eyes with his fist.

Ruso handed him a cloth from the shelf by the window.

“Thank you, sir.” He blew his nose into the cloth. “Sorry, sir. I’m just glad to be alive, really.”

“I’ll tell your friends you’re doing well,” Ruso told him.

“Thanks for keeping them out, sir.”

“Tribune’s orders,” Ruso explained. “It’s a pity. We could have charged admission.”





Chapter 12

Fabius leaned back, winced, and readjusted his cushions before patting his hair back into place. “I’m definitely not well, Doctor. I feel extraordinarily tired, and I have pains all over.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Ruso helped himself to a seat and indulged his regular fantasy of ransacking Fabius’s house for medical textbooks and burning them. He kept his own scrolls well hidden from patients with a tendency to diagnose themselves, but since the visit of a traveling medicine-seller Fabius had found himself warding off an alarming variety of diseases. For some reason he thought Ruso might be interested.

This was in sharp contrast to Tilla, who had dismissed the only Latin medical text Ruso possessed as useless. Her patients could not indulge themselves with special diets eaten at particular hours of the day, arranged round gentle walks and set rest periods. Most of them were lucky to have food at all.

Unfortunately there was no one in the fort who had the authority to tell Fabius to be ill on his own time and not the Legion’s. Ruso’s assertions that there seemed to be nothing wrong with him had been met with surprise: Surely a modern doctor like himself was aware that looking healthy could be a sign of impending sickness? Did he not realize that Fabius had already cheated death several times by taking to his bed and giving up work, food, and sex at the first sign of symptoms?

Faced with this unassailable evidence, and suspecting the kitchen maid would be glad of the rest, Ruso had given up arguing and done his best to avoid him. But today there was no choice. While Fabius settled on his day couch, Ruso gave him the news that Regulus was as comfortable as could be expected.

“I would have gone to visit him,” said Fabius, looking almost genuinely sorry, “But the tribune doesn’t want him disturbed.”

“I don’t think he meant you,” Ruso said, but Fabius was too busy thinking up a better excuse to notice the tone. Not optimistic, Ruso explained about Candidus: “I thought he must have just gone absent without leave, but I’ve been through his kit and he hasn’t taken the things you’d expect. Plus, he’d made commitments.” In the shape of a chicken.

“Perhaps he left on impulse.”

“Your man was kidnapped. It’s possible mine is also being held somewhere against his will.”

Fabius leaned sideways and straightened the fringe on his rug. “Surely the quarry camp should be looking for him?”

“They can’t find him. And he’s supposed to be working for me, here.”

Fabius ordered his clerk to make a note of the name, but instead of writing, the point of the stylus remained poised half an inch above the wax. “Candidus,” Ruso reminded him.

“Full name, sir?” enquired the clerk.

“No idea.”

Fabius frowned. “We do want to be looking for the right man, Doctor.”

It was commonly assumed that the Sixth had offered Fabius’s services to the undermanned Twentieth in order to get rid of him. Possibly his family had felt the same way, since he seemed to have been lowered into the centurionate from a great social height, rather than battling his way up to it through the ranks. With luck he would soon be given a medical discharge from the Legion. Unfortunately soon did not mean this morning.

“Since he’s my man,” Ruso pointed out, “he’s technically under the command of Prefect Pertinax. So I’ll be keeping the prefect informed about the inquiry while he’s in the hospital.”

Even lying gravely injured in a hospital bed, Pertinax had the power to impress. Fabius said, “Ah,” as if he were seeing the situation in a new light. He examined his interlaced fingers for a moment, then looked up. “What do you think we should do?”