"She used to feed her dinner to the birds."
"Well, now she's missing. I'm afraid that whoever hurt Saufeia might hurt her. If you know anything at all about what happened to Saufeia, or to Asellina, you must tell me. Nobody's going to punish you for talking now."
The boy shook his head. "I don't know nothing about Saufeia, sir. Everybody thought Asellina had gone to live somewhere nicer. All the girls cried when they found her."
"I see."
"I like it at Merula's," said the boy. "I don't want to go nowhere else."
"You're a bright boy, Lucco," said Ruso. "You'll do well wherever you go."
The boy replied politely, "Yes, sir."
Ruso stood up straight, glancing around him and wondering if it would be kinder to get out of the way and let potential buyers assess the boy's worth. The more the better. A slave for whom there were several bidders would fetch a higher price and logic dictated that a valuable asset would be well treated. The trouble was, logic rarely dictated what people did in the privacy of their own homes.
"Sir?"
He turned.
"Sir, please could you give my mother a message?"
"Your mother?"
"Please could you tell her Bassus told Merula about the oysters?"
Ruso frowned. "Bassus told Merula about the…?"
"The oysters, sir. So Merula told him to take me to the trader." An energetic sniff was followed by, "Bassus said he was going to find a nice family for me, but now he's gone and told Merula about the oysters. My mother doesn't know."
Ruso was now thoroughly confused. "You mother doesn't know about the oysters?"
"She doesn't know I'm here." The boy glanced over at the clerks behind the desks. "Do you think they'll let me go and say good-bye?"
Ruso doubted it very much. "You are being sold because of oysters?"
The boy nodded. "I didn't mean to do it, sir. I mean, I didn't mean…" His voice tailed into silence.
Ruso scratched his ear. This story was beginning to sound familiar. He lowered his voice so they could not be overheard. "Wasn't Merula's last cook sold because of serving bad oysters?"
Lucco nodded, dumb.
"And now Merula's found out you were involved?"
Something approaching panic entered the boy's eyes. "Please, sir!" he muttered, barely audible above the hum of conversation in the marquee. "I won't ever do it again!"
"I'm not going to tell anyone, Lucco." If no one had seen to it that the damnation of "attempted poisoner" was written on the child's label, he was certainly not going to do it himself.
"I didn't mean it, sir," whispered Lucco. "Somebody said the officer from the hospital was there. I thought they meant the nasty one."
Ruso was having difficulty following him again. "Tell me about these oysters," he suggested.
"Cook had them on the side to throw away."
"And you sent them out to a customer?"
He nodded. "It was just a bit of a joke, sir."
A bit of a joke that could have ended in a charge of attempted murder and a gruesome execution for its perpetrator. As it was, Valens had suffered acute food poisoning and Ruso had been obliged to do the work of three men and had ended up so far out of his senses that he had bought a girl on a building site.
He put his hand back on the boy's shoulder. "I'll go and see your mother right away. Where do I find her?"
"She'll be working, sir."
"Yes, but where?"
The boy stared at him. "Where she always works, sir. At Merula's."
It was Ruso's turn to stare.
"You know her, sir," said the boy "They call her Chloe."
68
Earlier that same morning, two young women in local dress were walking away from the huddle of native houses that Ruso had visited two days before. They were making their way down the track that led to the main Eboracum road. The taller of them was carrying a small sack over her shoulder.
Her companion turned to glance at her. "It's not too late. You could stay."
"And repay kindness with trouble?"
"No one knows you're here."
"Sabrann, sooner or later someone will talk. Now the worst they can say is that I came, and I went."
They walked on in silence for a few steps, then the smaller girl frowned. "Stop a moment." She reached up and tugged at her companion's hood. There had not been enough plant dye-or time-to disguise the whole of the hair. Brown wisps curled around the temples, but beneath the hood was a long blond plait. "You must remember to keep this forward," she warned. "I can't pin it any tighter. I don't know how you're going to manage tomorrow"
The taller girl shrugged. "Someone will be sent to help."
"You'll have to keep moving. It's a good fifteen miles and the state of the tracks will slow you down."
They reached the edge of the road. The only traveler they could see was leading an oxcart back in the direction of the fort.
"Do you have all you need?"
The hooded girl lowered the sack to the ground. "Bread, a comb, a blanket. Everything I asked for, and your mother gave me cheese and bacon."
Sabrann put a hand on her shoulder. "May the goddess walk beside you."
"And keep you ever in her gaze."
Their embrace was awkward, the hooded girl careful to keep her right arm concealed beneath her inconspicuous gray cloak. "I must go," she said, fingering her acorn necklace before raising the sack to her shoulder. "While the road is empty."
"Don't forget!" Sabrann waved an arm in an easterly direction, raising it to indicate distance. "Beyond the bridge, after the oak tree, take the track to the left. You must be careful not to stay on the road any longer than you have to."
The hooded girl stepped onto the gravel surface. When she turned, Sabrann was already on her way back to the houses. She was alone on the road once more.
Three days earlier, the walk to this place from Deva had tired her more than she had expected. She had been relieved to be offered water and, after the briefest of introductions, summoned to the big house to be inspected by the grandmother, who was head of the family
Led over to face a chair near the fire, she had knelt in the bracken that covered the floor. As her eyes adjusted to the familiar gloom of a house with no windows, she found herself being peered at by a wizened old woman with sparse white hair pulled back behind large ears.
"Darlughdacha," said the old woman, repeating the name that had been shouted into one of her ears by her interpreter, the girl Sabrann. The grandmother shared the girl's strangled accent and her speech was distorted by the absence of teeth to trim the ends of the syllables, but the name was clear enough. "Daughter of Lugh," continued the grandmother. "Why have you come to us? Do we know you?"
"I spoke with a woman who was born near here, grandmother!" shouted the young woman who had been Tilla for a few weeks, and before that had been nobody for so long that being addressed by her own name now made her feel that someone else must be kneeling beside her. "Her name is Brica! She told me I could find people of honor here!" It was difficult to shout without sounding angry.
"It's no good," said Sabrann. "I have to shout everything right into her ear."
The old woman, realizing that she was missing something, turned to Sabrann, then squinted at her and frowned. "Where is your hair, girl?"
Sabrann grinned. "I pinned it up!" she shouted, twisting to show the back of her head and miming a stabbing action with her fingers, then turning back to shout, "Hairpins!"
The grandmother shook her head in disbelief. "This will all come to an end when you have a husband and some proper work to do!" She aimed a forefinger at Tilla. "What did she say?"
Sabrann leaned close to the old woman again and shouted, "She has heard that we are people of honor!"
"Yes," snapped the old woman, "but who says so?"