Accius sighed. “I should know better than to listen to a doctor. You people see a pimple, call it a deadly disease, and prescribe six weeks in bed with daily visits.”
“They’re hiding something, sir.”
“They’re describing the same man! Besides, they couldn’t have known you were going to come asking. Why would they all get together and make something up?”
It was a fair point, and one Ruso had already considered. “Sir, think back to your childhood. When my brother and I did something we weren’t supposed to, we agreed what we’d say in case we got caught.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Accius. “I don’t have any brothers.”
Ruso was struck by a picture of the lonely young Accius wandering through a large house, wishing he had somebody to play with, and suddenly thrilled by the attentions of a storybook war hero. No wonder he had been determined to defend him. “The point is, sir,” he said, “we only ever did it when we knew there was something to cover up. And the more clever we tried to be, the more likely we were to trip up. If they said they hadn’t seen anyone-which I imagine they told Clarus-they’d have been fine. But they decided to embellish their cover story when Victor was arrested.”
“Or they could have discussed their memories around the campfire one night.”
“Then they would have gone to Clarus, sir. And Clarus would surely have told you that he had evidence against one of your men.”
“Hm.”
“One of the other veterans told me that Geminus wasn’t popular when they served together. I think this may go a lot further back than we realize.”
The silence that followed was interrupted by the trumpet signaling time to move on.
“Well,” said Accius, “that’s something to think about.” He took a step back toward the road. “Thank you, Ruso. You will now forget everything you have just told me.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, the recruit under arrest is-”
“He’s none of your concern. If you want to do something useful, help us get the rest of them to Deva.”
“What about my wife, sir?”
“Just stop her from making any more trouble.” Accius strode away to deal with more important matters, leaving Ruso wondering how to carry out that most challenging order of all.
Chapter 70
Ruso was trying to find out who he should ask about borrowing a horse when he found Dexter riding alongside him. The man had never been friendly, so he was surprised to hear a greeting. He was even more surprised when Dexter said, “You did a good thing, Doctor.”
“I did?”
“Somebody should have done it way back.”
“Geminus?”
“Me, I was never happy about him. You just turned up and dealt with it. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. The horse tossed its head.
“I didn’t do it.”
“Shame about young Victor, but he’s not the sharpest tool in the box, is he?”
“He didn’t do it, either.”
“I bet you’re thinking, How did the old man get away with it for so long?”
“Sports Night?” said Ruso, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice. “You know, then?”
“Where did you think you were, the amphitheater?”
“It was just a bit of harmless fun to start with. But the old man didn’t know when to stop. And I didn’t have the authority to stop him.”
“Men were being injured!”
“They weren’t my men.”
Perhaps not, but Dexter must have been betting on them.
“Then he went and lost that lad in the river. Even Geminus could see he’d gone too far there.”
“But by then he’d implicated everyone else,” Ruso surmised.
“He was a clever bastard.”
“Was it you who told the maintenance crews to follow me?”
“We had to know what you were up to. They were keen enough to help. Nobody likes an inspector.”
“You could have backed me up!”
Dexter shrugged. “What’s done was done. The old man said if we talked, we’d all be thrown out with no payoff. Or worse. So we decided to keep the lid on it.”
And they said centurions were the bravest men in the army.
“You don’t how it was,” continued Dexter, as if he had guessed what was in Ruso’s mind. “You weren’t there.
“I got the general idea from his dog. Where is it, by the way?”
“Still with him,” said Dexter unexpectedly. “We couldn’t have a dangerous dog on the march, so it went on the pyre.”
Ruso pictured the wolf dog standing calmly alongside its master and felt more kindly disposed to it in death than he had in life. “Bella,” he said, as if he felt he should mark its passing by naming it, and then tightening the muscles in his leg so that the stitches pulled. “How much does the tribune know?”
Dexter shrugged. “That’s what he’ll be trying to decide, ready for telling his story at Deva.” He paused. “Nobody meant it to end like it did, you know. It was just a bit of fun.”
“I didn’t kill Geminus,” Ruso repeated. “Neither did Victor. So where were you that night?”
Dexter was staring ahead to where the recruits were marching in ragged lines four abreast. “Busy knocking heads together,” he said. “But if that’s the way the wind’s blowing, maybe I’ll take the credit.” Urging his horse into a trot, he moved forward to ride alongside his men.
Ruso watched him trim the lines and fall in beside some of the junior officers. According to Pera, Geminus’s shadows had managed to get themselves sent north with Hadrian, but he supposed most of the officers had been tainted by Sports Night in one way or another. No wonder they were keeping a close eye on the recruits. They were terrified of them.
Chapter 71
The tribune’s guards had shown little interest in Tilla, but Minna seemed to be taking the duty very seriously. Her approach to guarding a hostage who might yet turn out to be an officer’s wife was to travel behind, watching her every move, ask from time to time if she was quite comfortable, and then do very little about it if she wasn’t.
Tilla was bored, frustrated, and still feeling faintly queasy from the cough medicine. Only the fear of causing more trouble for her husband had kept her in her seat all day, watching the land gradually begin to rise and fall as the convoy trudged toward the hills at the speed of the slowest ox in front.
From time to time she had sent Virana to find out what was going on. There was no good news. The Medicus was busy. Victor was spending another day limping along behind a supply wagon. He must be in agony: Already his wrists were rubbed raw and his feet would be blistered where he had been unable to shake the grit out of his boots yesterday. The medics had bound them up, but another day of marching must have made them much worse. There were at least eighty thousand paces between here and Deva, and Victor would feel every one of them.
The sun was well past its midday height when the convoy ground to a halt yet again for no apparent reason. Tilla had had enough. Without glancing back at Minna, she and Virana jumped down and went forward to see if there was anything interesting happening.
By the time they got there, the empress’s painted carriage had been unhitched and was propped on stacks of wood by the side of the road. The front wheels lay in the grass. As was the way with breakdowns, there were a lot of men standing around pointing at various parts of the carriage and telling each other what had gone wrong and how to fix it. Several more were crouching by the props to hold them steady, and offering advice to the one man underneath who was actually trying to do something. As Tilla approached, a loud and very rude word suggested things were not going well down there.
“Really!” Minna, of course, had not been able to resist following them. “Fancy speaking like that in front of the empress!”
The empress, seated on a folding stool under a parasol held by one of her slaves, looked weary rather than shocked. Minna managed to corner another of her slaves and ask if there was anything the tribune’s household could do to help, and that was how, somehow, the empress, the parasol, and the first slave ended up in Celer’s smelly cart while Tilla and Virana walked behind them the mile to the Falcon’s Rest.