“Camp nine,” said the centurion. “After that, just native farms. HQ might have a scout who can tell you more.”
Candidus’s knife had been found at least a hundred paces away from the track. The lad had not struck him as someone who relished unnecessary fresh air and exercise, and it seemed unlikely that a man absent without leave would break away to scramble up a hill, lose his knife, and come back down again to continue his journey. He—or someone else—could possibly have thrown the knife up here, although it was hard to imagine why. Perhaps someone else had borrowed or stolen it and dropped it. Perhaps Candidus had lost it himself while he was up here earlier for some reason that had nothing to do with his disappearance. Perhaps . . .
Perhaps there were even more obscure possibilities, but eventually Ruso would have to face the thought that Candidus might have been near the wall when he vanished.
His gaze drifted to the scaffolding. The uprights now lashed in place gave some sense of the full height to which the stonework would rise. From where he was standing, anything to the north would soon be invisible. You could not see through a wall. You could not see into it, either.
Leaving the centurion with “Let me know if you hear anything of him, will you?” he made his way swiftly back to where Olennius was slapping down another bed of mortar.
“Sir?”
“The truth,” Ruso said. “When did you find it?”
Olennius held on to the trowel this time. “I told people I’d got it, sir. I wasn’t stealing.”
“I know that. Your centurion may not need to hear the exact truth, but I do.”
The man counted on his gloved fingers with the point of the trowel. “About four days ago, sir.”
Ignoring the hard stare of the usurped centurion, Ruso headed back down to the road. When he was halfway there he stopped and turned. The teams were back at work, mortaring heavy stones into two parallel faces. The wide unfilled hollow between them reminded him of nothing so much as a vast, elongated stone tomb.
Chapter 20
Tilla cupped her hands and blew on them to warm them before calling again. Finally a man appeared from behind the house and told her that her patient, the young woman with the week-old baby, was not at home.
“But I have walked here. She knew I would be here today.”
The man shrugged. “She must have forgotten.”
On the way back, Tilla barely noticed the ivy in bloom, nor the rose hips, nor the puddle until she stepped in it. By the time she was back at Ria’s bar, the cold had spread beyond the leaks in her boots, and her damp socks were beginning to rub blisters on her toes.
“Nobody came for you, mistress!” Virana called as Tilla hurried past on the way to the loft in search of fresh footwear.
Wearing dry socks and her indoor shoes—she had indoor and outdoor shoes now: such luxury!—she returned to the bar carrying a scroll and her box of medicines. Then, keeping her shawl on, she sat by the entrance, nursing a warm cup of honeyed milk. She opened the scroll and began to run her forefinger along the letters, mouthing them softly to herself, putting the unfamiliar sequences together until they shaped themselves into words.
“These are necessary observances for the healthy person to take during pestilence.”
The best advice was to go abroad. Failing that, it was wise to be carried in a litter. After that there was a long list of instructions that included avoiding fatigue and not getting up early in the morning.
It was ridiculous. What normal person could do more than dream of any of those things? It was very difficult to learn anything from a book when she was constantly wanting to argue with its author.
She looked up hopefully as each customer came into the bar, but only two patients wanted to share her table for a quiet chat. One was a soldier’s girl worried about her baby’s cough, and the other a slave of a passing jeweler whose injured hand needed a fresh dressing. Neither was really a job for a medicus. Anyone with any common sense could have dealt with them.
She told herself it had been a quiet morning everywhere. Nobody wanted to go out in the cold. The fact that she had seen no local patients might have nothing to do with yesterday afternoon. Surely word could not have got around so quickly. Did everyone know she was the wife of a Roman who had sent men to search and threaten to burn down a house where he had been a guest?
She forced herself to struggle on with the scroll. So far it had been useless but it seemed to impress the patients, and besides, it was the only medical book her husband owned that was not in Greek. But even on a good day, she would have had trouble keeping her mind on this nonsense. Today it was hopeless. The letters kept sliding about in front of her eyes, her finger lost its place, and her careful mouthing of the words died away.