"Tilla."
"My Lord."
"You are supposed to be at work."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Instead, you are here."
"Yes, my Lord." She lowered her gaze again. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then she said quietly, "My Lord's trousers are fallen down."
Ruso slowly unrolled the belt from his palm and buckled it around his tunic, trying not to speculate on his servant's perception of what he was up to behind the tree. The punishment would have to wait until he had recovered some dignity.
51
Ruso looked up from the whetstone and put the scalpel down. "Come in, Albanus."
The door opened. Albanus appeared. "How did you know it was me, sir?"
"Magic," said Ruso, who had recognized the knock. "Any luck?"
Albanus advanced into the surgery. "Sir, the pharmacist says he doesn't know anything that uses all those ingredients."
"Did you ask if you could use them separately?"
"Yes, sir. Or in any combination. And he said yes, it was dog's mercury, and you could use it as a purgative but you'd be safer using hellebore because too much would cause severe gastric problems and coma. The wood sorrel-he said he didn't know any uses for it but if you took lots of it you'd probably be ill, and he said the best thing to do with garlic mustard and nettles is to mix them with scrambled egg and eat it while it's still hot."
"Good. Thank you." Ruso retrieved the scalpel and began work on the other side of the blade.
A wax tablet and a collection of wilted leaves appeared by the whetstone. "I wrote it down, sir."
Ruso glanced across. The notes inscribed in the clerk's neat handwriting really did end with "eat while still hot."
"Very thorough as usual, thank you."
"And there's somebody to see you, sir."
Ruso cleared the greenery to one side of his desk. "Send him in. Have you got his notes?"
"It's a her, sir." Albanus left a slight pause before adding, "I think you've got the notes already."
Albanus had gone, leaving Ruso alone with his slave.
"Close the door, Tilla."
The latch clanked into position.
He carried on stroking the triangular blade across the stone, conscious that she was waiting for him to speak. Her feet were in his line of vision. She was wearing the new boots.
He had asked her to report to him here as soon as she had finished the shopping. By this time, he felt, he would have worked out what disciplinary measures were appropriate. But despite mulling it over throughout their swift and silent walk back to town, and again in the few minutes since he had finished ward rounds, he had failed to make a decision.
He drizzled more oil onto the stone. As it soaked into the worn gray surface in the wake of the blade, he reflected that at least she had turned up as instructed. He had thought she might go gallivanting back to the woods in search of the plants he had confiscated from the basket. Garlic mustard and nettles. Edible and harmless, as the pharmacist had confirmed. Mix with scrambled egg. Eat while still hot. Perhaps he had done her an injustice. But dog's mercury? Severe gastric problems and coma? Surely it was a common enough plant for no one-especially the daughter of a midwife-to mistake it for something else?
He glanced up to find those eyes looking directly into his. Her mouth was set in the sort of line that suggested a direct approach would be a waste of time. Instead he said mildly, "Are the boots a good fit?"
He could see he had taken her by surprise. She lifted her skirt to look at them. "They are, my Lord," she said, and then added, "I thank you."
He nodded. "Good." She had tidied her hair. He noticed for the first time that she had made beads from three acorns: one brown flanked by two green, threaded on a length of thin twine to form a necklace. As her doctor, he should have been pleased to note that she was starting to take an interest in her appearance. As her owner, he had more pressing concerns. He laid the scalpel on the whetstone and pushed it to one side. "Now bring the basket over here and let's see what you've bought me."
She had bought him bread, apples, five eggs, cheese, bacon, and green beans. He glanced into the greased leather pouch that held his own flint and steel, and which she had no business bringing out of the house. He put it back without comment and said, "Tell me, Tilla. What tribe do you come from?"
She laid the folded cloak back across the top of the basket and put them both on a stool. "The Brigantes, my Lord."
The ones who were causing trouble. Somehow this was not a surprise. "They are from the hills north and east of here?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"And are they a very religious people?"
She shook her head. "Not all of them, my Lord."
"But you are faithful to your gods."
"The goddess protects me."
"And when you make medicine, is that something to do with your goddess?"
No reply.
"I'm interested in your medicine. Some of your plants here are new to me. Maybe I have something to learn."
No reply.
He lifted up one of the wilted stalks. "What is the use of wood sorrel?"
No reply. Her good hand was picking at a frayed strand of linen at the end of the bandage.
He put the first plant down and picked up the second. "I'm told this is dog's mercury. What would you use that for?"
No reply.
"You were in the kitchen when Claudius Innocens was taken ill. You put a curse on him."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Had you also made medicine for him?"
"No!"
"So if I ask the other people who were there, they'll confirm that you didn't go near Innocens or his food?"
Tilla pursed her lips as if she were about to spit, then cast a sideways glance at the floorboards and thought better of it. She said, "I do not wish to go near Claudius Innocens."
"No," said Ruso, "that's quite understandable." He ran a forefinger through the stubble he still hadn't found time to have shaved. Perhaps he should give up and hope beards would come into fashion when Hadrian's famously hairy chin began to appear on the coinage. He said, "Who were you making medicine for yesterday?"
No reply. The hand went back to the bandage.
Ruso sighed. "This blessing and cursing business, Tilla. Cooking up potions. Chanting. Wandering off into the woods. It's got to stop. People will think I'm harboring a Druid."
No reply.
"Am I?"
"The Druids are all gone."
"Am I, Tilla?"
"The army kill them all."
Ruso was quite well aware of the official line. The Druids, chased out of Gaul generations ago, had taken refuge in Britannia and made their last stand on a far western island in the territory now covered by the Twentieth. It was rumored that some had escaped, but Rome had taken comfort in the fact that Druid knowledge was not only secret and murderous, but complicated and coupled with a widespread refusal to write anything down. It took, they said, twenty years to train a Druid. So instead of hunting down hidden copies of documents, all the army had to do was keep culling the Druids on a regular basis and they would finish them off, like chopping down weeds before they had a chance to seed.
"Those songs," he said. "What are they about?"
"They tell stories."
"About Druids?"
"About my people. We sing of our ancestors. If we do not sing, our story is lost."
Ruso pondered that for a moment. It was plausible. The locals seemed to have no proper statues or tombstones. A people without that tradition would have to keep the memories alive in another way.
"Somebody should write it down," he suggested.
She looked at him as if he had just said something very naive. "My Lord, the people could not read it."
"They could learn."
"But why would they want to when they can sing?"
"Refusing to learn to read and write," said Ruso, determined to win at least one point, "is a very shortsighted view."