Tabula Rasa(76)

Aedic wished everybody would stop talking about it. It was as if they had heard about something exciting and they all wanted to be part of it.

It wasn’t exciting. It was a snake that writhed inside your stomach and hissed that something very, very bad had happened, it was going to get worse, and it was all your fault.





Chapter 44

“I can’t make him go indoors, Tilla!”

“You are the army!” She leaned forward in the bed and retrieved the pillow from behind her. “It is your job to make people do things they do not want to do!” As if to illustrate how this was done, she gave the pillow a couple of hefty punches. “Why else are you here?”

Ruso’s left boot landed with a clump on the floorboards. “You complain when we don’t respect local wishes.” He tugged at the laces of the right boot and dropped it beside its partner. “And then you don’t like it when we do.” He aimed his socks into the dark beyond-the-lamp oblivion of the corner where he had stowed Candidus’s shield.

“But he is an old man!” She dropped the pillow back into place. “It is cold even in here. He will be dead by morning!”

“Perhaps.” It was not his fault that Senecio was a stubborn old goat.

Tilla looked as though she were about to raise another objection, so he said, “The sky’s clouded over now. It’s not as cold as it could be. Valens will make sure the night staff keep an eye on him.”

Tilla gave the sort of exaggerated sigh that said this would never have been allowed if somebody sensible had been in charge, then asked, “Do you think the army would lend us horses tomorrow?”

“ ‘Us’?”

“Me and Enica. We need to talk to the man who told Virana about the body. We have other names to follow too. We may have to go a long way to find these people.”

He pulled back the covers and slid in beside her. “I’ll ask,” he promised, doubting their efforts would lead to much, but having no better ideas to offer. “Light out?”

Instead of answering the question she said, “It has been a bad day. Did Virana tell you she was insulted?”

“Ah. She was looking a bit weepy when she let me in. She said she was upset about Branan.”

“That too. She said she used to look forward to seeing him.”

“Gods above. Branan?”

“Not like that, husband.”

From somewhere downstairs came the sound of raised voices. Female first, then the rumbling of male resentment. Tilla said, “Ria wants to pack up and move to Deva for the winter when the Legion goes. He wants to stay here where they have always lived.”

More argument from downstairs, the tone clear but the words indistinct. Ruso, who had hurried past Ria with a promise that he would talk about a fee for using the bar in the morning, was not sorry to know she was fully occupied.

“A man and a woman,” Tilla murmured. “It is not easy.”

“Mm,” he said. It seemed the safest thing. “Who insulted Virana?”

“Some local people. That is nothing new. But Conn let it happen.”

He said, “When this is over, we ought to make him apologize.”

In the silence that followed perhaps she too was thinking that if Branan was not found, there would never be a time when this was over.

“If I didn’t think he was fond of his father,” he said, “I’d have Conn first on the list of suspects. Hiding his brother somewhere just to cause trouble.”

Tilla rolled over to face him. “I have wondered this. Whether he is jealous of Branan.”

“The doted-on younger son, clever and popular, and the bitter older half brother . . .”

“His girl snatched away by the army.”

“What girl?”

She said, “Did you not know?” and proceeded to relay what she admitted was gossip about the girl’s rape by a soldier during the troubles, her refusal to have the baby taken away, and a broken betrothal. “They say that is why he is so angry.”

“Even so, why would he do this to his father?”

She said, “For liking Branan better.”

The reasoning made sense. The practicalities did not. “Branan was taken by a soldier.”

“Soldiers can be bribed,” she pointed out. “Or imitated. Perhaps there may be some captured equipment still hidden in secret places after the troubles.”

“Really?”

She said lightly, “Who knows?”

“Well, you do, clearly.”

“Not near here,” she assured him.

He let it pass. “If the soldier wasn’t really a soldier . . .”

“I am just thinking aloud.”

“We’ve got half the Legion chasing around searching, everybody suspecting everybody else, and the officers busy trying to work out where several thousand men were yesterday afternoon. I’d imagine if anything could make a man like Conn happy, that would be it. I’ll see what I can find out.”