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

hands and peering at the buildings on the low rise beyond the river.
    “Yes.” Tilla followed her gaze, seeing the familiar mud brown rectangle of the fort and the jumble of thatched houses that spread out from it like a stain. The clang of a smithy echoed across the valley, interrupted by the distant whinny of a horse.
    “It’s very small.”
    Tilla had to agree. Yet the fort had not seemed small when she lived here. It had seemed massive and ugly and overwhelming.
    She could make out tiny figures moving along the streets outside the fort. She wondered if she knew any of them. How many of the girls she had grown up with had been seduced by Roman money? What had happened to the girls who should have married her brothers?
    She would not think about her family. She would not think about them because when she did, the sparkling river and the birds and the splendid yellow of the gorse became a hollow joy: a reminder of all that she had lost.
    The civilians who had traveled with the Twentieth were barely across the bridge when a gaggle of residents—mostly women of assorted ages, sizes, and colors—surged down the slope to greet them. Bags were grabbed, with or without the owners’ permission. A blather of multi-accented Latin promised fine rooms, dry rooms, cheap rooms, rooms with no bother with the neighbors, rooms with good views of the river, snug and secure rooms, nice quiet rooms, rooms handy for the shops, rooms only a short stroll from the waterspout. . . . Nobody, Tilla noticed, even bothered to try the local tongue. These women were living their lives on the land her own people had farmed for generations, yet now it was she who was the stranger.
    The mule’s bridle was seized by a shawled woman with badly bleached hair who assured them in Latin that she had a very comfortable loft room, and they should hurry now before someone else took it. “Close to the baths, over a very respectable eating house,” she assured them, tugging the animal past an official-looking inn and up the slope toward the houses while the driver protested in vain.
    She did not release her grip until she had led them past the wooden ramparts of the fort, taken another turn down a side street and reached the grand doors of a gleaming white bathhouse. She waved an arm toward a snack bar opposite with an awning sagging over a couple of outside tables. “A week’s rent in advance,” she said, “and the back of the loft is yours.”
    “I have no money,” whispered Lydia.
    “Don’t worry,” Tilla assured her. “I know who has.”

13

    R USO RETURNED FROM delivering his weasel-worded report to headquarters to find the infirmary office crowded with men and smelling of beer and stale sweat. He gave them a cursory glance and went across the corridor to visit the amputee.
    The man was horribly pale. Ruso checked his pulse, which was as fast and faint as he expected. The man’s hands and remaining foot were cold. Ruso renewed the compresses on the rib cage and sat watching the labored breathing for a few minutes. “There isn’t much more we can do at the moment,” he said to the bandager. “Get the cook to feed you. I’ve got to go to a funeral this evening, but I’ll take over after that. Fetch me right away if there’s any change.”
    After a swift visit to the bedridden patients in the four scruffy wards (four! Seventeen beds should present no challenge to a man who was used to supervising dozens . . . ), Ruso went to inspect the state of the treatment room.
    As he stepped into the room he realized he was not alone. A large man crawled out from under the heavy operating table, scrambled to his feet and performed a salute that would have looked more impressive had he remembered to let go of the brush first.
    “Stand easy,” said Ruso, recognizing the big Batavian who had helped with the carpenter that afternoon: a man who seemed to be perpetually stooping to duck under a lintel that wasn’t there.
    The man’s arm returned to his