‘I do not!’
‘Why don’t you both go?’ suggested Cass, grabbing a child in each hand. ‘I’ll come with you.’
As their protests faded towards the far end of the garden, the carriage bearing Severus on his last journey home turned left on to the main road and swept past the walking figure. The figure hesitated at the junction. Then it turned and began to tramp down the track towards them.
‘It is your barbarian, Uncle Gaius,’ insisted a small voice.
‘Yes,’ agreed Ruso, adjusting his grip on the stick and setting off to meet her.
‘But what’s she doing here, Gaius?’ Arria’s voice floated after him, rising in alarm as he retreated. ‘Where are my girls?’
22
Tilla was moving along the track with small, deliberate steps, watching her feet as if she could not trust them to obey her. As she drew closer she stumbled. He called out to her. One hand rose to flap a faint response. Cursing his lame foot, he lurched towards her in the nearest thing he could manage to a run.
‘Tilla, what’s happened?’ He offered an arm for her to lean on. ‘You look terrible.’
When she lifted her head her face was white. ‘My lord, I lost your sisters.’
It was not only the weariness in her voice that told him she was almost at the end of her strength. He could not remember the last time she had called him ‘my lord’. He said, ‘You look dreadful. Has something happened?’
‘Are your sisters here?’
‘No.’ He interrupted her cry of despair with: ‘This is my fault. We had a crisis here and I forgot to send the cart. Have you walked all the way? Where’s your hat?’
She paused before replying, as if she was assessing whether it was worth using the energy. Finally she said, ‘The hat is lost too. My head is aching. I am sorry.’
He wanted to carry her. Instead he had to ask, ‘Can you make it to the house?’
‘Yes.’
Arria was hurrying towards them, calling, ‘Where are my girls? Gaius? Make her tell us what she’s done with them!’
‘Lost,’ Tilla whispered, ‘in the shop with the jewels. I turn around, they are gone. I look for them, then I go to the gate of Augustus, but it is past the seventh hour, and nobody is there. I think they are gone without me. But now they are not here.’
‘Gaius? Gaius! What’s she saying?’
‘She needs water, quickly. She’s exhausted.’
‘But where are my girls? I should never have let them persuade me to trust her!’
‘I forgot to send the cart,’ he explained, deciding half the truth would be enough for now. ‘Tilla’s walked all the way home in this heat to fetch it. She needs plenty of water to drink, and tell Cook I want a jug of vinegar and a mixing bowl.’
Arria bent to peer up into Tilla’s white face. ‘Oh dear. This one’s not going to die as well, is she?’
‘Of course not,’ Ruso assured her, stifling a momentary panic at the memory of being unable to help Severus. ‘I know what I’m treating this time.’
Tilla was propped up on his pillows, wearing nothing but a cool sheet to preserve her dignity and a cold compress on her forehead. ‘Drink some more,’ he ordered, putting the cup in her hand and turning back to carry on pounding unguent of roses into a measure of vinegar.
‘I am well,’ she insisted, although her voice was barely stronger than her pulse had been. ‘You must find your sisters.’
‘Marcia and Flora can wait,’ he said, tipping more vinegar into the bowl and mixing it in. ‘Keep drinking.’ He was not going to leave her until he was happy that she was recovering. This was his fault in more ways than one. He should have sent that cart and he should have thought to warn her. In a town with a fine supply gushing from the street fountains, it had never occurred to him that Tilla might not stop for more than a couple of sips of water all through a hot morning. He had seen enough cases like this in his first post with the Army, when men marching under the African sun had run short of water. It began with heat and over-exertion and dehydration and, if it was not treated, it ended very badly indeed.
He dipped the sponge in the mixture and began to wipe it down her neck, across her shoulder and along one arm.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Vinegar?’
‘In the Army they used to complain about the roses.’ He turned the compress over and stepped round the bed to sponge down the other side. ‘Any dizziness, nausea, stomach cramps?’
‘Just the headache, and I am very tired. Please. Go and look for the sisters. This is not a good way for me to start with your family.’
‘They should have had the sense to stay with you.’
‘What will I do if you do not find them?’
‘I’ll find them,’ he growled. ‘They’ll be tired of shopping by now.’
‘You are not afraid for them?’
‘I’ve got bigger things to worry about. They’re not children.’
She took another gulp of water. ‘I am sorry. You have enough troubles with that man wanting money.’
‘Not any more.’ He explained about Severus’ fatal visit.
She sighed. ‘This is worse. Everyone will think it was you.’
Ruso hesitated. At the moment, Tilla was a patient, and a patient should be kept away from unnecessary anxiety. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he assured her, dabbing the sponge into the bowl. ‘I’ll tell everybody what happened to him, and it’ll all be sorted out. Now, where exactly did you last see my sisters?’
23
Alone in the Medicus’ bedroom, Tilla put the smelly sponge back into the bowl and forced herself to pour yet another cup of water. Further down the corridor, the Medicus’ brother and his wife were quarrelling. It was hard to grasp what the argument was about. She could hear the raised voices, but the words were muffled by the walls. Only the occasional phrase from Lucius broke through: ‘… comes back here and makes a mess of everything!’ was followed by an indistinct reply. Moments later, ‘What do you mean, I always take the easy way out?’ was clear enough. He was demanding, ‘… any idea how hard I work?’ when there was a scream of ‘The girls! They’re home!’ from Arria, followed by the sound of footsteps running along the corridor.
Wincing at the pain in her head, Tilla wrapped herself in the sheet and climbed down from the bed. She made sure there was nobody in the corridor before crossing to the window that looked out over the garden and adjusting the shutter so she could peer through the gap by the hinge without being seen. Marcia and Flora were marching up the path towards the house, looking furious. Arria hurried down the steps to fling her arms around them, crying, ‘Where have you been? Are you all right? I should never have left that woman to look after you. I told you I didn’t trust her.’
‘We don’t know where she went,’ grumbled Marcia, slapping straw off her skirt. ‘We’ve been looking for her for hours.’
‘But she’s here!’ exclaimed Arria. ‘She told us she’d come home to fetch the cart for you.’
‘We didn’t know what to do,’ said Marcia. ‘We just turned round and she’d gone. We waited at the Augustus gate for hours and hours, but nobody came.’
‘We had to beg a lift home on one of Lollia Saturnina’s delivery carts,’ said Flora.
‘Lollia? Oh, whatever will she think of us? And we’ve had to cancel the dinner!’
Marcia said, ‘Why?’ but Arria was not listening.
‘Your brother’s gone rushing off to fetch you. Didn’t you see him on the road?’
‘He’s a bit late,’ pointed out Marcia.
‘We might have missed him,’ said Flora, picking another strand of straw out of her sister’s hair. ‘We were so tired we had to lie down for a rest in the back of the cart.’
‘That woman abandoned you in town, strolled back here without you and lied to us?’
‘She probably didn’t know what to do,’ said Flora.
‘I expect she just said whatever came into her head,’ said Marcia. ‘It’s not her fault. I don’t suppose her people understand that sort of thing.’
‘This is not good enough. I’m going to have to talk to Gaius.’ Arria’s voice grew louder as they climbed the porch steps. ‘You’d think if he was going to bring one home he would have …’ Tilla missed what came next, dodging back into the bedroom as they entered the house.