On the way back to his lodgings, Ruso glanced across at the builders working on the roof of the bathhouse. He wished he had chosen a trade where almost anything that went wrong could be fixed with a hammer.
He was about to turn the corner when a voice called after him, "Sir?"
He stopped. One of the hospital orderlies was hurrying after him. "You're wanted, sir!"
"Officer Valens is on duty now," said Ruso, who had been hoping to get on with the Concise Guide.
"No, sir, it's you who's wanted."
"Who by?"
"The second spear, sir. You're to report to him straightaway."
11
Stand easy, doctor." The second spear settled into his seat, rested muscular arms on a desk that seemed too small for him, and gave Ruso the kind of look that said nonsense would not be tolerated.
Ruso decided he did not envy Valens the challenge of persuading this man to hand over his daughter in marriage.
"We've had a complaint," continued the second spear. "About a body."
"Sir?"
"A girl from a bar."
"Yes, sir. Merula's."
"You took it in?"
"Yes, sir. Nobody knew who she was at the time."
The second spear nodded. "Probably just as well. It might have been somebody's wife. Most of us keep our women well guarded, but you always get the odd one who thinks she knows better. So, then what happened to it?"
Ruso explained. His pauses were punctuated by grunts of assent from across the desk, followed by, "Right. So who cut the hair off?"
"I don't know, sir. It was like that when she was brought in."
"And you didn't think to warn the owner?"
"No, sir."
"Well, they're not happy. They got a bit of a shock when they saw it and they want to know if we did it."
"Absolutely not, sir. You can check with the gate guards. She was found by a couple of fishermen. You could ask them."
The second spear shook his head. "Doesn't matter. As long as we can't be blamed for it. I'll send someone over to calm them down. And tell them to forget any ideas about compensation."
"Thank you, sir. Any luck finding the culprit yet?"
"No. Don't expect we ever will. We'll keep an eye open, but I doubt much will turn up. No witnesses, of course. It's the usual story: These people are quick enough to complain, but blind, deaf, and dumb when you start asking questions. Turns out the girl was offered protection and chose not to take it."
"She might not have understood the dangers, sir. She'd only been here ten days." It was about the same length of time that Ruso had been here himself.
"Hmph. Not what you'd call bright, these locals. Did she think they'd got two of our lads down there on security for fun?"
Ruso said nothing.
"This will knock a bit of sense into the rest of them," the second spear went on. "At least for a month or two. Bloody nuisance, all of them. Haven't been here long, have you?"
"No, sir."
"In a civilized country-even in parts of Britannia-we'd leave the town council or tribal elders or what-have-you to sort this kind of thing out. 'Round here, just because they're living on army land, they expect us to wipe their backsides for them. If it was up to me, I'd have a curfew and flog anything that moves after dark. Still, we should have a bit of peace and quiet for a while. You won't find many women hanging around the streets tonight."
"No, sir," agreed Ruso, who had not planned to look for any.
The second spear leaned back in his chair and folded his arms."When I was up with the Ninth," he said, "one of the medics took in a body. Thought he was being helpful. The natives got the idea he was cutting it up for anatomy lessons. Caused a riot. Ended up with a whole lot more bodies, three of them ours. My advice, Doctor, is not to get involved with the locals if you can help it."
"Yes sir," said Ruso, glad the second spear did not know who was in Room Twelve.
12
Ruso had discharged his duties for the day. There was nothing further he could do about the signaler's cataracts. His superiors would make any decisions about the dead girl, and he had left orders that he was to be called if there was a crisis with the live one. Alone in his bedroom, he was free to get on with drafting the next section of the Concise Guide to Military First Aid. Unfortunately, it was proving more difficult than he had expected.
He had imagined that once his reference books arrived, he would get straight back to work, freshly motivated after so long a break. Instead, he was sitting in his room scowling at a writing tablet on which he had written a title and two lines of notes before delving into the trunk to look up something that turned out to be in a different scroll from the one he expected and to be less relevant than he had remembered it. The bed was now scattered with unraveled scrolls and note tablets and a few scraps of broken pot on which he had scribbled passing thoughts when nothing else had been handy, and he was still stuck on line three. His mind, apparently unwilling to apply itself to ordering his work, seemed to be seizing every chance to wander off. It was futile and unproductive to wonder why a slave with a "posh voice" and the ability to read her own name had been working in a bar in the first place. No wonder Merula had said she was not suited to the job. But then why-
A shout of laughter from beyond his bedroom door brought Ruso back to his task. He reread what he had written, picked up the stylus, then paused to glance over his notes again. It didn't help that Valens was on call this evening, unable to leave the house unless summoned by duty. Across in what passed for a dining room (they had not bothered to shut the door, of course), his colleague was discussing horses with a couple of friends who had loud voices and even louder laughs. Valens had invited him to join them, but as soon as he explained that he had work to do they seemed to have forgotten all about him.
At least they didn't keep popping in to ask how it was going. The Concise Guide had been conceived-the only thing that was, thank the gods-during his marriage to Claudia. It had been a welcome retreat. The early work had progressed fluently, but several chapters in, it had occurred to him that he was no longer being "concise." Instantly, the flow of words seemed to dry up. While he waited for inspiration to return, he went back to the beginning and edited the first chapters to half their original length. That was when Claudia asked to see how much he had written.
"Is that all?"
"It's supposed to be concise."
"So is it finished now?"
"No."
"Well, when will it be?"
"Later."
"You ought to talk to Publius Mucius if you're stuck. He writes books."
"I am not stuck!" To prove it, he had begun to devise an Overall Plan. This was what he should have done in the first place. He had entangled himself too early in the detail.
Ruso stared gloomily at the four versions of the Overall Plan, which he had removed from the trunk and stacked on the corner of his writing table. Each version had made good the shortcomings of its predecessor, but some new drawback had soon become apparent. He had kept all the versions in case he wanted to refer to them later-it would be a nuisance to find he'd rubbed something flat only to have to rewrite it-but incredibly, considering the hours he had spent poring over each one, he could not now remember which was which. He did not know whether the tablet claiming to be the LATEST VERSION really was, or whether he should be working from the NEW. And what was AMENDED amending?
Ruso sighed. The truth was, despite all the hours he had spent on it, the Overall Plan had been a waste of time. Maybe the whole project-no, he couldn't abandon the Concise Guide after all this work. Any fool with a stylus and a modicum of education-even Publius Mucius-could write a book, and plenty of them seemed to make money at it. Unlike most of them, he actually knew something worth passing on. He must simply get on with it. He picked up the stylus, frowned at the title "Treatments for Eye Injuries," and began to write.