“A little,” confessed Tilla, who was still not sure it was a good idea.
The boy called across to the doorman, “Is Mam around?”
“Working.”
The boy shrugged and apologized to Tilla, who said, “We mustn’t disturb her.”
He took up the bag again. “I’ll take you to the mansio now.”
Evidently nothing worth telling her about had happened on the next street, possibly because hardly anyone was living there. A shop was offering bread along with a pile of unidentifiable meat, a box of cabbages, and five cheeses arranged in a pyramid on a tray, but at the moment she had no use for any of them. Nor for the shoemaker on the corner, who broke off from his work to offer instant repairs and grease to keep the rain out. A third shop seemed to be offering the sorts of things soldiers collected in barracks and then found they could not carry with them when they left: an old carved chair, a birdcage repaired with twine …
The official inn was just beyond the east road, and it was a surprise. Its walls were bright with fresh white limewash. Its doors were in place. Its windows had glass, its roof looked intact, and there was no sign of women or cabbages for sale inside. Two slaves in matching cream-and-brown tunics rushed forward to take her luggage. Relieved, she paid the boy more than she should have, and they were both happy.
The slaves took her to a downstairs room that looked out over the dripping courtyard garden. It was not cheap, but it smelled clean and it had all the things she needed: two narrow beds, two lamps, one table with a jug and bowl, and a wicker chair with a faded scarlet cushion. Better still, there was no sign of anything with more legs than herself living there already.
The slaves bowed and retreated. She opened the boxes of medicines to check that none of the bottles was broken and that the linen bags were dry after their journey, then slid them away under the beds. There was nothing to replace or refilclass="underline" They had barely been used on the trip so far. She pulled her sister-in-law’s letter out of its safe place, tucked away in her tunic, and left it in the middle of the table.
She had no idea what the letter was about. Marcia’s writing was like nothing she had ever seen before. She had given up trying to make out anything beyond Dearest Gaius. Gaius was what the family called him. Dearest was what they added when they wanted something. No wonder he was putting off looking at it. That was one of the bad things about being able to read: people could nag you from a great distance.
She washed her face and pulled a comb through her hair before twisting and pinning it tight at the nape of her neck. The pleasure of a proper wash and dry clothes would have to wait: she must face the weather again to catch the shops and the shoemaker before they closed, and perhaps have a quiet word with the bar staff before Lucina and her friends were busy selling their wares in a language that all men understood everywhere.
She hurried around the covered walkway that enclosed the courtyard garden, patting the purse slung from her belt. She was reassured by the chink of several large but not very valuable coins. They would be enough for bread and boot grease and whatever else she would need to buy to get into conversation. With luck, the tradespeople would spread the news that a very experienced and skilled army doctor was staying at the mansio for a few days, along with his wife who was a midwife. Both would be available for consultation when his military duties allowed, and their fees were very reasonable. In amongst the curious, the desperate, and the ones who had fallen out with the local healers, there might be people they could actually help, and who would be willing to pay.
Two matching slaves emerged from one of the doors ahead of her. They paused to let her pass and bowed at exactly the same time. She was wondering whether they held bowing rehearsals in spare moments, when she heard a voice inside the entrance hall that was familiar but not welcome.
“And a private kitchen!” it was saying. “A proper kitchen, that is, not just a brazier in a corridor somewhere. The cook needs space to prepare the tribune’s food. He is very particular about his diet.”
It seemed Accius’s staff had not been impressed with the housing inside the fort, either.
Tilla glanced round the courtyard. There must be a way out that did not pass through the entrance hall. One of those doors must lead to the street, but which? Now that she needed them, the bowing slaves had disappeared. She wondered whether to go back to the room, then realized how ridiculous it was for an officer’s wife to be hiding from someone else’s slave. Pulling her hood up over her head as if it were blustery indoors as well as out, she stepped into the entrance hall. The tribune’s housekeeper was still in full flow.
“Ah! There you are, madam!”
Tilla clenched her teeth. She had spent most of the journey listening to Minna and the driver competing to see who could find the most to complain about. She had silently added Must understand about speaking only when spoken to to the list of qualities their future slave must have when they finally got around to buying her. Or him. The disagreement was one of the reasons they were still paying the neighbors back at Deva for the services of a borrowed kitchen slave. The other was that most of her husband’s earnings went back to his family in Gaul.
“Here I am,” she agreed politely. Minna might be a slave, but her master was a powerful man-as she never tired of pointing out.
“I was just explaining, madam,” Minna continued, “that house over in the fort is a disgrace. I’ve never seen anything so filthy in my life.”
Tilla bit back Then you are a very lucky woman.
“I see you weren’t prepared to put up with it, either, madam.”
“I am staying here,” said Tilla, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of agreeing.
“You see?” Minna demanded of the manager, as if the state of the military accommodation were his fault. “It’s not even good enough for the natives!”
As Minna carried on (“My master is a tribune, not just some passing centurion!”), Tilla felt the blood rising in her cheeks. Not even good enough for the natives? One of the local staff-who were probably listening somewhere out of sight-ought to hide a frog in the wretched woman’s bed. Better still, a cow pie. Perhaps she would do it herself.
Instead of telling Minna to go away and use the servants’ entrance, the manager was promising her that the very best suite was being prepared at this moment.
“Well, I hope they’re doing it properly. I know what you people are like.”
Tilla paused in the doorway to give the manager a sympathetic glance, but his face was still a mask of politeness. She said, “I shall be out for a little while, and I may have some visitors later.”
The manager bowed. “Yes, madam.”
“I will come back for dinner.”
“We shall look forward to it, madam.”
She made her way down the steps outside, leaving Minna complaining that it wasn’t as if the soldiers hadn’t known her master was coming. Perhaps she thought the poor man might feel sufficiently outraged to go up to the fort and berate the Twentieth Legion for negligence.
Chapter 7
“Doctor Ruso, sir?” The voice echoed around the empty benches in the entrance hall of Eboracum’s hospital.
Ruso would have been hard-pressed to recall many faces from the ever-changing trail of young hopefuls who had followed him around the wards back at Deva, supposedly watching and learning. But standing before him was an older, thinner version of a short curly-headed youth whom he remembered only too well.
“It’s Pera, sir. I was-”
“You were at Deva,” said Ruso, grateful for the reminder of the name.
“We got your letter, sir,” said Pera. “Welcome to Eboracum.”
“Thank you,” said Ruso, trying to remember anything Pera might have done to distinguish himself apart from that unfortunate prank in the mortuary. The awkwardness of the pause that followed suggested Pera might be trying too.