“How will you do that?”
He had never told her that Conn was under surveillance, for the very good reason that she was not supposed to know. “Sorry. It’s been a difficult day. I mean, we both need to be aware of it.”
He wondered who was paid to inform on Conn, and whether the security people would be prepared to tell him. Suddenly Tilla said, “There is still no word of Candidus?”
“There’s some hint of him arranging to meet a man he’d seen before, but that could be anybody.”
“What if the same man stole both of them?”
He frowned. “We’ve gone from Conn being jealous to some villain who’s going around, abducting random people.”
She sighed. “Fear is a short rope. Every time I set off toward where Branan might be, I am pulled back by the feeling that I might have just turned my back on him.”
He remembered something else. “We’re checking everyone’s movements, so I suppose I need to confirm that my pharmacist really did go away on leave.”
“Did he know Branan?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Is he the one who said he would kill Candidus?”
“That was a misunderstanding.”
The argument downstairs seemed to have ended. She said, “I keep thinking about Branan.”
“Me too. It’s the not knowing.”
“And the fear that the knowing might be worse,” she said. “I feel as though I am swimming in a soup made of confusion. What does a child stealer look like?”
“If you could tell by looking, we’d have caught him already.”
He pictured Senecio lying out in the cold, worrying about his son. He tried to picture Branan but could not. He saw only the dark shape of the farm dog on the night they had first met, and heard the voice that had greeted him with, Are you the doctor? and then said with relief, Now I can go in out of the rain.
He rolled across to her, wrapping himself around the warmth of her body. “I am sorry things went so wrong with the old man’s family.”
“So am I.”
He was drifting off to sleep when she wriggled.
“The lamp,” she explained, waving an arm across him and trying to reach it.
“I’ll do it.”
He was almost asleep when a thought drifted across the distant horizon of his mind. It vanished as he tried to focus on it, but to his annoyance he found himself awake and alert, convinced it was something important. If only . . . What had he been thinking about just a moment ago?
He didn’t know.
Beside him, his wife stirred and murmured something in her sleep.
It was definitely important. Something he should have queried earlier. If only he could get back to that state of half awareness . . .
By the time he woke, the gray morning light was filtering round the shutter that covered the excuse for a window. His wife was sitting up beside him. She crossed her arms and lifted off her night tunic, shuddering with the cold as she did so. He paused to enjoy the view. Then, when the most interesting parts had vanished under the wrapping of her breast binding, he said, “Tell me again what Virana said about Branan.”
Chapter 45
The legate’s attempts to reassure his centurions at the morning briefing were overridden by the alarming fact of his presence. Usually he was based elsewhere and was only ever seen at the various camps under his command later in the day. He invited Accius to outline the plan for the day’s search, then stepped up again and emphasized the importance of not being provoked by the locals. He had spoken with their leaders, who had agreed to ask the people to stay calm. Since Ruso had never heard the locals so much as mention any leaders, he doubted that would have much effect. He listened with interest as the legate dodged the question everyone wanted answered—what would happen if the boy was not found?—and went on to announce that the curfew would remain in place tonight but that Samain celebrations would be permitted as long as the locals stayed on their own property after dark.
It must have been a difficult decision to make. There would be no celebration in Branan’s home, but if he was not found, the Samain gatherings elsewhere would provide the ideal breeding ground for trouble. Especially once the fear of meeting the dead in the dark had been overcome by beer and bravado. On the other hand, banning them would stoke more resentment: It would be tantamount to punishing the locals for having one of their children stolen by the army.
Ruso was glad he was only responsible for the life of one man at a time.
Some of the other officers paused to offer a polite “Sorry about your father” to Ruso before leaving with their comrades to relay the day’s orders to the men. He waited until they had gone before he made his own contribution.