Merula turned to stare at Ruso.
"Me, sir? Saufeia? I don't think so, sir. But these girls' names change like the wind, sir. If you're after something special I could-"
What Claudius Innocens could do was never made clear: He was too busy lunging for the bucket.
Ruso had to hurry back to his hastily cleaned but still smelly lodgings to fetch one of the ingredients for Innocens's medicine. By the time the ailing man had swallowed it, a bowl of pale damp beans was resting on the table where Tilla had sat. Ruso knocked on her door without success and then, hearing her weeping, hurried downstairs to see if there was a spare key. That was when he learned that Tilla was no longer occupying the shabby little upstairs room. Merula had moved her in to sleep with the other girls.
"That isn't what we agreed."
"I'll give you a discount," conceded Merula, placing a jug of wine and four cups onto a tray. "We needed the room." She glanced around the bar area and shouted, "Daphne? Table four!"
"Whoever's in there now doesn't sound very happy."
Merula handed the tray across the bar to Daphne, who had changed from her kitchen clothes and had tied a green ribbon in her hair. "I don't buy girls to make them happy," said Merula. "I buy them to work. Yours is in with the others. Through the kitchen and turn left."
On a lone chair festooned with discarded clothes sat Chloe, now huddled in a brown blanket, her feet soaking in a bowl of water. Tilla, who had been lying on one of the lower bunks, swung her legs off the bed and stood up. Chloe stayed where she was.
Ruso had never considered where bar staff might live when they were off duty, but if he had, he would have expected something better than this. The room was dingy and cramped. What little floor was visible between the three sets of bunk beds was presumably mud beneath the covering of dried bracken. The walls had once been cream but were badly stained with soot. Limp feminine laundry had been draped over a length of twine tied between the bunks. The girls had made attempts to brighten things up: Two cheerful red bows adorned the latches of the shutters and a familiar-looking cup filled with yellow flowers sat on the one shelf. Around the flowers lay a scattering that reminded him of Claudia: combs, mirrors, hairpins, jars of makeup.
He had the feeling of being too big for the room; as if any misjudged movement would knock over something precious and break it.
The girls, as was proper, were waiting for him to speak first. Trying not to think about Chloe's tongue exploring his ear, he cleared his throat and said, "Good evening."
Tilla bowed her head and murmured with a pleasing-and surprising-display of respect, "My Lord."
Chloe reached for a towel. She looked tired. The black around her eyes was smudged. It was hard to imagine her as the seductress he had seen writhing in the bar.
Ruso coughed again. "I hear there was a funeral today."
Chloe lifted one foot out of the water. "Some of us are starting to wonder who's next."
"I am sorry for the loss of your colleague."
"That's more than the management were. And I wouldn't call it much of a funeral. If it hadn't been for Decimus I bet they'd have dumped her in a ditch."
Not sure how to reply, Ruso turned to his slave. "Show me where you are sleeping now."
Tilla indicated a rolled-up mattress stashed between two bunks. As Ruso checked to make sure it was the clean one, she said, "A new girl is here."
"Asellina's been replaced," put in Chloe. "They were starting to run out of staff."
"The new girl is locked in the room," Tilla continued.
It was not an unreasonable precaution. "You should stay away from her for a day or two," suggested Ruso. "If she came here with Innocens she may have the same illness."
"I hope he is very ill and then he dies," said Tilla.
Ruso, who could not agree with this sentiment aloud even though he might share it, instructed her to sit down. He knelt awkwardly in front of her to check the alignment of the splints. Chloe did not offer him the chair.
As he felt along the length of the lower splint, he said, "I gather Innocens did not eat here?"
"If that's what Merula said," put in Chloe before Tilla could answer, "then he didn't."
Ruso glanced at her. "I'm not trying to accuse anyone. Nothing you say will leave this room, but it will help me do my job."
He saw the two girls look at each other. Chloe shrugged, tossed the towel aside, and reached for her sandals.
"He takes from the kitchen," explained Tilla. "When the mistress is not there."
"What did he take?"
"Wine, apple pie, and Mariamne," said Chloe.
"Mariamne?"
"He might have made her feel sick," continued Chloe, winding the thongs of a sandal up her calf, "but not the other way around. There's nothing wrong with the wine, and other people have had the apple pie."
Ruso pondered the possibilities as he checked the limited movement of the bandaged hand. He was paying no attention to Chloe groveling for something under one of the bunks, which was why when he turned to find her hidden behind a golden cavalry mask and brandishing a sword, it was a shock.
Chloe raised the mask. "It's blunt," she assured him, lifting the sword toward the fading light from the window before sliding it back into its scabbard. "You wouldn't believe what rubbish you have to put on here just so the customers can look at you taking it off again. Want to come and see the show?"
"I'm sure it'll be very, uh…" Ruso paused, looking for a word. "Artistic."
" 'Course it will," said Chloe. "That's why they come to watch."
When she had gone he turned to his patient. "Tilla, tell me what you know about Claudius Innocens."
"He is a patch of slime."
"Yes, but do you know what he was doing in Deva before I met him?"
Tilla shrugged. "He stays at an inn. He leaves me locked up there when he goes to do business. He tells me he will fetch a healer but I never see one."
"And some of his business was here with Merula?"
"I do not know, my Lord. If you ask him, he will lie to you."
"Did he ever mention any other girls?"
"He says I am the most ungrateful girl he has ever met."
"Hm. So he doesn't lie all the time, then. Tell me one more thing. Do you know why he is ill?"
The eyes that reminded him of the sea were wide with innocence. "Perhaps he is cursed, my Lord."
"What would make you think that?"
"Perhaps your medicine will make him better."
"Perhaps."
There was a pause, then she said, "What medicine do you give?"
Ruso looked at the door to the kitchen, which was closed. He looked at Tilla, and at the complex bandaging that covered the very best work he had been able to do, but which even now would probably not return her the full use of her arm. He said, "I gave him medicines that are recommended by several authorities."
She raised her eyebrows, waiting.
He took a deep breath and said, "Some of my colleagues recommend chewing several cloves of raw garlic." Although not necessarily to cure vomiting. "And then to sweeten the breath, the patient should take honey containing ashes of burned mouse droppings."
Her eyes widened. "And this is what you give for sickness of the stomach?"
"There are men who recommend these things," he responded, wondering what had possessed him to administer this ludicrous and disgusting treatment in which he had no faith at all, and scarcely able to believe that he had just admitted this weak-but oh, so enjoyable! — moment to a slave.
From somewhere in the yard outside the window came the sound of retching. Tilla said, "I think it did not work."
"No," agreed Ruso solemnly. "Perhaps he is cursed."
40
Ruso's thoughts as he lined up with the First Century on the damp parade ground were a mixture of apprehension and annoyance. The apprehension was such as any man who has not recently undertaken serious physical training might feel at the prospect of a ten-mile run. The annoyance was partly with Valens, who could surely have found a more sensible way to impress the second spear. It was also with himself for rising to the challenge of Valens's "I would have signed you up too, but after a summer off I don't suppose you'd be up to it."