Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie

some attention to the body. One hand rose to finger a charm on a leather thong around his neck. “You’re the doctor,” he said.
    “You were his centurion,” retorted Ruso. “I don’t want to waste my time guessing at things other people already know.”
    Audax finally conceded that Felix had no known health problems that might have prevented him from defending himself against an attacker, but despite a careful examination of the body Ruso could find no sign that he had done so. There were only some yellowed bruises that could have been training or sports injuries, and a fresh graze on his knee that probably happened when he fell.
    “And Metellus says this is the murder weapon?” Ruso picked up the gleaming dagger lying beside the body and laid its edge against the victim to test the shape of the blade.
    “I’ve cleaned it up,” explained Audax, grasping the charm around his neck again. “We’re cremating him tonight. That’ll be sent to his family back home along with the rest of his kit.”
    “This doesn’t look like the work of anyone who’s studied anatomy,” observed Ruso, checking the sharpness of the dagger and bending down to take a closer look at the corpse. “Why didn’t he put up more of a fight? Had he been drinking?”
    “He wasn’t a big drinker.”
    Ruso scrawled, “Four cut marks on fifth cervical vertebra, division between fifith and fourth cervical,” vertebrae into his notes. At least they would be accurate, even if his official conclusion was questionable. “Did you notice the temperature of the body?”
    Audax sniffed and replied that it was about what you would expect from a man who had been lying dead in a back alley all night. And yes, he did seem to have been killed where he was found. “I should know. I got sent down by matey from Rome to clean up the alley.”
    “Metellus?”
    “While he sat on his ass in here waiting for me to come back and wash the body.”
    “The body was only ever seen by the two of you? Not the infirmary staff?”
    “We decided not to invite the neighbors in for a look,” retorted the centurion, inadvertently trampling over Ruso’s theory of how the disturbed doctor had learned the details of the murder.
    “And you haven’t spoken to anybody about what you found?”
    Audax scowled. “Who’s running this, you or Metellus?”
    “I’m supposed to be helping him.”
    “So help him by telling us something we don’t know already. Like why some bastard native would do this sort of thing to one of my men.”
    “Can I take a look at his clothes?”
    “They’re burned.”
    “Really? Why?”
    Audax shrugged and said it had been done on Metellus’s instructions. Well, they hadn’t known a medic was going to come along asking questions, had they? And no, nothing much had been found on the body.
    “Nothing at all?” asked Ruso, surprised.
    “Just his belt and his purse with his money still in it. The money’s gone back into the camp bank.”
    The young man’s hands were surprisingly uncalloused for a soldier. One of his fingernails had been blackened some time ago. Ruso imagined him cursing when that had happened. Imagined him expecting to live long enough for the injury to heal. Imagined him hurrying into that alley between the butcher’s and the general store, perhaps worried about getting back to the barracks in time for curfew. Instead, his night out had ended with him being turned into some sort of ghastly sacrificial victim.
    Ruso told his imagination to get back into its place. He must think clearly. He must find something useful enough to justify his insistence on a postmortem, but not so useful that he would look like a threat.
    He allowed himself a small glow of self-congratulation. After several months of sharing quarters with Valens he was beginning to get the hang of this politics business.
    “Thanks,” he said to Audax. “I’ll write up my report now.”
    Alone in the mortuary with his note tablet and his thoughts, Ruso