“It’s one of his recruits, sir. He insisted on going up there.”
“He would.”
The hand from the window swung the rope around and tied the ladder in position. Four men attempted to hold it steady while Geminus began to climb.
He was halfway up the ladder when it slipped and screeched down the tiles. Accius gasped. The lone centurion clung on, his tunic rippling in the wind. Above him the rope was hanging loose from the window, now with a detached rung swinging about at the end of it. The rung fell out of the rope, struck one of the men holding the ladder, and clattered down the roof, gathering speed before it launched off the edge.
Above them, the blond recruit was motionless, still straddling the ridge tiles at arm’s length from the drop.
Geminus bent to say something to the men below him, who adjusted their positions one by one. There seemed to be a discussion going on. Finally the rope was retied to the side struts of the ladder, which was where it should have been in the first place. Accius muttered something under his breath as Geminus stretched up across the gap in the rungs, and kept moving.
This time the ladder held steady.
Ruso’s attention was caught by the sound of running feet. Ten or twelve young men appeared around the corner with mattresses slung over their shoulders. The mattresses were silvered with drizzle and the straw had collected in the bottoms of the covers, so that they were swinging about and banging awkwardly into the men’s thighs.
Directed by the centurion on the ground, they piled them up on the flagstones directly beneath the gable end. Ruso, afraid someone might now encourage the recruit to jump, nudged his horse forward and murmured, “Centurion, you do know he’s too high for that to help?”
“Who are you?”
“Ruso, medical officer from Deva. I’ve seen this sort of thing before.” Dexter shrugged. “At least it’ll be over.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sulio.”
“Your comrade seems to think he can get him down.”
Dexter snorted. “A real man would have killed himself in private, but the natives have to make a drama.”
Ruso was aware of a mutter of prayer from one or two of the young men. All were gazing upward at Sulio, several clutching good-luck tokens strung alongside the lead identity tags around their necks.
“Move along there!” shouted Dexter, adding, “It’s not a bloody show. Get back to training!” as they retreated.
Geminus was at the top of the ladder now, but he was still not high enough to step onto the roof. He put both hands on the tiles. Ruso could feel the thud of his own heart. Geminus looked very small against the dull gray sky. One leg rose tentatively, then he grabbed the ladder again.
Ruso instinctively groped behind him to check that his medical case was still strapped behind the saddle. As if it would do any good.
Geminus repositioned himself, raised one knee, and finally eased himself up over the edge and onto the roof. Ruso wiped the rain off his face and spotted a medical team assembling a couple of stretchers against the wall of the hall, out of the recruit’s line of vision. They had brought a box of dressings but also-more realistically-a bucket of sawdust, a broom, and a shovel.
Geminus was now picking his way diagonally across the roof toward the gable end. The blond head turned toward him. Geminus came to a halt while they were still ten feet apart. Nothing seemed to be happening. Perhaps they were talking.
Down in the street, the arrival of breathless runners signaled the delivery of more mattresses. Dexter busied himself directing their arrangement as if they would make a difference.
Above them, the conversation-if that was what it was-seemed to be over. The recruit was hitching himself backward along the ridge toward safety. Ruso let out a long breath, and then Geminus moved forward.
Seeing him coming, Sulio stopped. Then he edged back toward the drop. Geminus, concentrating on his own progress, did not seem to have noticed that his man was moving in the wrong direction.
“Wait!” Ruso yelled, aware that he might be making things worse by interfering. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Stay still!”
Dexter, seeing what was happening, shouted at his men to stand clear.
“Centurion Geminus!” Accius’s clipped voice rang out across the street. “This is Tribune Publius Valerius Accius. Halt!”
Geminus looked down, and paused. Just out of his reach, Sulio clambered awkwardly to his feet. He swayed above the drop, then steadied himself. His wet tunic flapped against his thighs.
“Sit down!” Everyone was yelling now. Cries of “Don’t do it!” and “Stay there!” and “Don’t be a fool, son!” filled the street, but Sulio did not seem to hear them. He looked back over his shoulder again at Geminus, who raised both arms as if he were trying to hold him steady by embracing the air between them.
Sulio turned away. He stretched his hands toward the dull sky. He looked as though he was praying.
“Sit down!”
“No!”
The street was silent for one long and terrible moment. Then Sulio hit the ground.
Chapter 6
Wherever two main roads met there were soldiers, and wherever there were soldiers there were women, and wherever there were soldiers and women there would sooner or later be small boys, and one of the great delights of small boys was to watch the roads for the arrival of weary civilians and then descend upon them like a cloud of midges.
On the way into the fort, Minna had slapped at the grasping hands and shouted insults in Latin. The small boys called her names in British that she did not understand, which was just as well. When Tilla emerged from the gates a short while later, still struggling with damp bags and boxes of medicines but no longer with a wagon to put them in, she was glad she had not joined in the trading of rude words. It made it less likely that the scrawny, barefoot helper she now chose to escort her to the official inn would run away with her luggage. In case he was thinking of it, she looked him up and down and said in British, “Don’t I know your mother?”
Perhaps encouraged by this connection, or perhaps in the hope of a larger tip, he gave her a commentary on the sights of Eboracum as they passed. Tilla, however, was not interested in knowing where Demetrius, the famous grammarian, used to teach, or how to find the temple of Mithras or the bar where the deaf wheelwright had murdered his wife’s mother. What she wanted to do was get out of the wind and rain. What she wanted to know was whether the official mansio was better than the ghastly centurion’s quarters she had just been offered inside the fortress.
She shuddered at the memory of a kitchen spattered with mouse droppings, a dining room with a gray fan of damp spreading out from one corner, and a lone and worm-eaten cupboard with the door hanging off. She supposed that once it was clear the previous legion was not coming back, the few troops left to garrison Eboracum had looted the unused buildings and then abandoned them. The cupboard was probably too damp to burn.
“This is it!” announced the boy.
Tilla gazed at a wooden building on a prime corner site. It was obviously a bar, well used and properly maintained. It was also very obviously a whorehouse. Watching them from the shelter of the doorway with his one good eye was a man shaped like a bear.
“Ah,” said Tilla.
The boy swung one of her bags toward a freshly painted slogan on the wall outside. “Look!”
“Yes,” said Tilla, squinting past the hair blowing into her eyes. “Are you sure this is the-”
“I can tell you what it says!” announced the boy. “It says, ‘Lucina, Pamphile, and Hedone welcome our heroes from the Sixth Legion.’ Lucina is Mam’s special work name.”
“‘We speak Latin,’” added Tilla.
The boy looked at her in amazement. “You can read?”