"Out!" ordered the ginger-headed doorman, ramming the porter's arm up behind his back while his colleague clamped a forearm around the bald man's throat and offered him the chance to be next if he wanted.
The man struggled to turn. "You! Where's Asellina? You let somebody steal my Asellina! You let all the girls run away!"
"Out, pal," repeated Stichus. "You're banned."
"All gone. All run away. He was the best girl in the-ugh!"
The porter, assisted by Stichus, made an impressive exit. As the man floundered and grumbled in the street, Ruso paused in the entrance.
"We've had trouble with him before," said Stichus, settling back onto his stool. "Me, I wouldn't have let him in."
"I need to leave a message for your mistress."
Stichus gave him a look that said he was too busy to run messages. Ruso ignored it. "I've given my patient the key to her room," he said.
"You what?"
"So she can choose who to let in."
Stichus shrugged. "Please yourself. But we can't be watching her day and night. If she's a runner, it's your problem."
"She's not in a fit state to run anywhere," Ruso insisted, although it had crossed his mind that if the girl managed an escape like Asellina's rather than Saufeia's, it might be better for both of them. "And ask your mistress to keep a note of any refusal to eat and drink."
"Starving herself, is she? Don't worry, we've seen it all before. Meru-la'll soon sort that out."
"Good," said Ruso, trusting the landlady's attempts to stimulate the girl's appetite would not stray too far from the diet.
His business here now at an end, he gathered up his case and limped out into the street. He had barely taken a step when a voice called, "Sir!"
Ruso watched an unsteady salute being performed from a sitting position against the closed shutters of the bakery.
"Man in need of assistance, sir!"
Sir closed his eyes to the sight of the porter. He prayed for patience and for the poppy juice to work quickly.
Despite Ruso's efforts at guidance, the porter's progress was as much sideways as forward. Not five paces down the street he stopped to deposit much of what he had drunk in the gutter. Ruso sighed, leaned back against the bakery wall with the weight on his good foot, and observed that some wit had added the words SAME OLD POISON to the words NEW COOK! beneath the torch illuminating Merula's doorway.
Finally they swayed back up the dark street and in through the south gates of the fort. Ruso gave the password for both of them and they were almost through the passageway when the porter seemed to realize where he was. He hauled himself to attention and shouted, "Request to report a murdering bastard, sir!"
"He's drunk," explained Ruso, as if the grinning guards were not able to see this for themselves.
"I'm drunk!" agreed the man. "I'm drunk, sir, but at least I'm not a murdering bastard with a painted head and a-"
"Shut up!" snarled Ruso. "That's an order."
The man swung around to inspect Ruso's face in the light of the gatehouse torches. After a moment he announced with apparent surprise, "I know who you are! You're the new doctor, Doctor. You bring dogs in, but they aren't as lovely as my Asellina."
Ruso glanced across at the gate guards. "One of you take his other arm, will you?"
Between them they dragged the man into the middle of the perimeter road. To Ruso's relief, the painkiller was beginning to take effect. He dismissed the guard, assuring him that he could cope, although the man plainly seemed to doubt him. "I'm perfectly sober," he explained, steadying himself as he shifted to take the weight off his sore foot.
"I've just had a bit of a bang on the head."
"Are you sure you don't need some help, sir?"
"No, I'm fine," Ruso assured him, leaning closer to explain, "I'm the doctor. I've prescribed myself something."
He was starting to feel far more relaxed now. Confident that his command of the situation was secure, he began to half-drag and half-carry the man along the road, taking the shortest route up by the deserted scaffolding of the baths and around the corner past the streaks of light that marked the shutters of the senior officers' houses.
A couple of passersby offered to help, but he dismissed them with a cheery smile and a wave. There was no problem. He was enjoying himself. He really ought to learn to relax more. See the funny side of things.
When he finally let go the orderly slumped against a post at one end of the dark lane between two barracks blocks.
"You're a good man, sir."
"Go and lie down, Decimus," said Ruso.
"You don't know nothing about dogs, but you're a good man."
The man staggered away into the gloom, leaning on the uprights of the portico for support. Finally he paused outside a door and fumbled with the latch. "Drink plenty of water before you go to sleep," called Ruso, feeling a rush of kindness toward the whole of humankind, encapsulated in this one drunken hospital porter, but the man was too busy falling through the doorway to hear him.
Ruso was still smiling when he climbed into his own bed, and so relaxed he decided not to bother taking his boots off.
22
Ruso shambled along to the kitchen wondering which was more painfuclass="underline" his sore head or his sore foot. Wretched woman. He needed a long cool drink of-
Damn. The jug was empty. Valens had thoughtfully moved it to weigh down the lid of the breadbin against invading mice but hadn't bothered to nip out and fill it first. Inside the bin was a chunk of bread so hard that the mice could have sharpened their teeth on it. There seemed to be nothing else edible in the kitchen. He chose the least dirty of the cups on the shelf and limped to the dining room. Beer would be better than nothing.
A gang of puppies bounced at his feet as he dipped the cup into the barrel. He was replacing the lid when there was a knock at the door. Still clutching the cup and with puppies licking up the drips in his wake, he went to explain to whoever it was that Valens was out.
The moment the door opened, the arm of the young soldier outside shot up in a salute.
Ruso transferred the beer to his other hand, put out his good foot to prevent a puppy escape and lost his balance slightly before returning an untidy salute and asking, "What do you want?"
"Albanus, sir, reporting for duty."
Ruso frowned, trying to imagine what the man's duty might be.
"Have you come to help out?"
"Yes sir."
"Oh. Good. Well, you can start by getting some water. I've got a mouth like a sand dune and there's nothing to drink."
The man looked puzzled. "Water, sir?"
Ruso jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Jug's in the kitchen."
He stepped aside, but the man did not move.
"Come in," ordered Ruso. "Shut the door before the dogs get out."
"Sir?"
"What?"
"I'm your scribe, sir."
Ruso stared at him and noticed the clues for the first time. The ink-stained fingers. The slight bulge to the eyes caused by peering at documents by lamplight. "Oh."
The man held up a satchel. "I've brought my equipment, sir."
"Well, you can take it away again," said Ruso. "I'm not on duty till this afternoon." He paused. "Report to me at the hospital at the seventh hour."
"Yes, sir." There was a pause. "What would you like me to do until then, sir?"
Gods above, Priscus had sent him an enthusiast. "Haven't you got some old records to copy?"
Yes, sir, he had.
"Then you can get on with that. Anything you can't read, ask me this afternoon. Don't make it up."
"Yes, sir."
The wretched man was still standing there.
"Anything else?"
"No, sir."
There was a silence, then Ruso remembered to say, "Dismissed."
After another snappy salute Albanus spun around, sending his satchel swinging outward and crashing back against his side, and marched off in the direction of the hospital. Ruso shut the door, sniffed the beer, and decided it wasn't better than nothing, after all. He limped back into the kitchen to fetch the jug. He had the feeling Albanus would have copied all the records in triplicate by lunchtime and be pestering him for more work. He could have given him the Concise Guide to copy. It was a pity that most of it wasn't written yet.