Tabula Rasa(82)

Ruso felt his fists tighten.

“Are you going to look for him or sit here drinking fancy wine all day?”

He fought down the temptation to rearrange Conn’s nose. As calmly as he could manage, he said, “I have a list of ideas to follow up. Can your people deal with some of them?”

“We can deal with all of them.”

“I’ll pass them on in just a moment,” he said. “First we need to talk about my wife’s friend. The girl from Eboracum who works here.”

“What about her?”

“She’s been insulted.”

“Not by me.”

“You were there.”

Conn shrugged. “She’s a whore. We need to talk about my brother.”

“She’s been doing her best to help find your brother. You should go and thank her.”

Conn opened his mouth, failed to think of a response, and gave a derisive bark of laughter. It was not very convincing.

“When you’ve thanked her, we’ll talk about where he might be.”

The Briton’s eyes narrowed. “Your fancy officer said you had to help us.”

“She’s in the back room. Make it sincere.”

Conn lifted his hand and glanced down at the notes he could not read. Then he turned on his heel and strode toward the back of the bar.





Chapter 47

Tilla wished she had brought a second writing tablet. Her letters were always larger than she would like, and she struggled to keep them in line at the best of times. Now the wax of the tablet that had caused such amazement at the farm—a local-born woman who could write!—was scarred with stabs at names that she would have trouble reading back later. There were large smoothed patches too. One had been the name of the man who passed the rumor on to Virana, but who turned out to have heard it from his wife, who had already been named as a source by two of Enica’s friends—and so it went on, the story of the story looping round and tailing back and blundering into dead ends where the person they needed to see was somewhere else: visiting relatives, trading, or out helping with the search.

It took several tries before they realized they must explain at the beginning that Enica was not there to blame or accuse. She was offering concerned neighbors a chance to help by tracing the real source of the rumor before the child snatcher did. But the rumor had begun its journey several days ahead of them. It had already passed around hearths and over bar tables and market stalls and across boundary walls and even—how things had changed since her parents’ day!—between locals lazing in the bathhouses at forts farther along the wall.

The slave followed them around with no sign of cheering up or of understanding anything that was said in British, so they called him by his real name to his face and Dismal to each other. Tilla had tried explaining to him that if he heard a horn he was to say so, because it might be the signal that Branan had come home. “Or it might be a war horn,” added Tilla, irritated by his glum face and sullen speech. “The signal for our warriors to rise up and throw your masters back into the sea where they came from.” Even then there was no reaction. Perhaps he believed her.

Some of the people they met were suspicious of the military brands on the horses’ shoulders. For the same reason they were twice stopped and questioned by army patrols and had to appeal to Dismal to confirm that the horses were not stolen.

Enica said little as they rode along the lanes and down the narrow twisting tracks, except to call out for her son. Tilla doubted he was close enough to hear. While every stone wall, every wooded valley, every ditch or patch of reeds, could be concealing him, any thief with any common sense would have got him well clear of here long ago, knowing people would be searching. Still, Enica looked more alive now that she had gained some sort of purpose.

They left the shelter of the trees and turned left onto the main road with Tilla urging her horse on in front and the slave bringing up the rear. The wind was gusting in from the west, cooling their faces with a light drizzle. They cantered as far as the shortcut by the burned ash tree, where they had to slow again for the horses to pick their way along the stony ground. In the distance Tilla could make out the overgrown ruins of a farm that might have been abandoned by choice, or more likely during the troubles. She thought again about the conversation with Senecio at the fort earlier this morning.

The tune he had been singing was one she had learned from her mother: a very old song about the offering of one man in order to save a people. Not a murder, but a human life sacrificed in the way it had always been done: through the threefold death. She had crouched down beside him and joined in, very softly, with one hand on his arm. When it was over he murmured, “I am lacking in courage, child.”