I shook my head then, too. "I don't know, Titus. I don't know. That had occurred to me as well, but I really don't know how badly she bit him. I thought at the time he had been more shocked than hurt, but I don't know with certainty. He might still have been capable of that. And there's another thing that crossed my mind, too, although I think I'm leaping at shadows."
"What?"
"She had been beaten with a stick of some kind. No one could find it, apparently." I had to stop and think again about what I was suggesting, before I went on. "It occurred to me that he might have used whatever he beat her with to penetrate her, too, so it would appear she had been raped when we knew him to be incapable of rape because of his injury."
"Sweet Christ, Cay! You're making him into a ravening beast!"
"You haven't seen that girl, Titus. Whoever did that to her is a ravening beast!"
"But that's simply not Uther!"
I rounded on him at that. "Then who is it, Titus? Is it you? Is it me? My father? Somebody did it! Somebody right here in Camulod. I'm not making this up out of my head. It happened!" I realized that I was almost shouting and dropped my voice. "That girl is lying over in Lucanus's quarters, Titus. She is not a figment of my imagination and neither is what happened to her. Someone in this fort savaged her like a wild animal—worse than a wild animal would have—and left her there for dead. It's a marvel that she is alive at all, and she may very well be dead as we speak. I hope not. If she lives, she'll be able to identify her attacker."
"How? I thought she was deaf and dumb?"
"Come on, Titus! She can point a finger."
"Oh, of course. Stupid of me."
"She has to live, Titus, because I can't function properly with these suspicions in my mind and no proof one way or the other. She has to live to look Uther in the face, and I have to be there when it happens, so I have to make sure she stays alive if and when she starts to recover."
Titus frowned at me. "I don't understand. You're not making sense. Surely, if she starts to recover, she'll stay alive?"
I bit down on my impatience and managed not to snap at him. "Think about it, Titus. Think it through. We are not dealing with the normal here. Suppose it was you who had done this thing, and you thought the girl dead and your secret safe. And then you found out she's alive and recovering, and that she'll be able to identify you. What would you do?"
"Run." There was absolutely no hesitation in his voice.
"Right. That's a good answer, and exactly what I'd expect of you, although you'd have to run fast and far to be sure of safety from Picus's justice. But suppose that for any one of a thousand reasons, you couldn't, or didn't want to run away from Camulod? What then? What would your next move be? Remember, we're talking about a small, sick, deaf and mute girl who is the only witness who might condemn you. What might you try to do then?" I was putting words into his mouth, but I had to.
"Try to kill her. You're right, Cay. We'll have to guard her day and night."
"How, Titus?"
"What d'you mean, how?" His brow was creased in perplexity.
"Who will you set to guard her? It was someone in this fort who did it to her, don't forget."
His face clouded. "We'll set a double guard."
"To guard the guards? What if there were two or more men involved? We don't know, and we can't afford to take that risk."
He stopped walking and looked straight at me. "You frighten me, Caius. You're telling me that I can't trust my own men."
I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's even worse than that, Titus. We can trust no one in this. That's the crime that has really been committed here. The only person in this fort whose innocence I can be absolutely sure of is myself. I know I didn't do this thing. The medic, Lucanus, I can be sure of, too, since he is the one keeping her alive. And you, my friend, are simply yourself incapable of such bestiality. My father and his men are on patrol. When they return, they'll guard her. Until then, it's up to us." I paused. "She is the only one who can clear Uther of suspicion, or condemn him."
"Damnation! This stinks like the sewers of Rome!" His voice was choked with disgust. "So what are we to do? How do we handle this? Have you any ideas?"
I only half heard his last question, for we had just reentered the fort and in the distance, disappearing in the direction of the kitchens, I had seen the unmistakable figure of Daffyd, my best friend among the Druids. The sight of him brought an associated image wholly formed into my mind and I suddenly felt a great surge in my chest as though something heavy had been lifted from me, and all at once I felt much better. I spoke to Titus over my shoulder.
"I've just had an idea, Titus. Leave me alone now and let me chew on it for a while."
He shrugged and shook his head, then raised his hands, palms outward. "I hope it's a good one, Cay. Take care of it because God knows we need it. I'll be in my cubiculum."
I watched him walk away, then I retraced my steps to the secluded masons' scaffolding against the wall. There, secure in the knowledge that none of the masons would consider approaching or disturbing me, I made myself comfortable and began to consider the idea that had flashed into my mind, considering it and adapting it until I had transformed it into a feasible plan of action.
The safety of the girl Cassandra was paramount. Upon it depended the end to my doubts, slight as they were, concerning my cousin's guilt. The two must be confronted with each other, were I to continue living in sanity. Her initial reaction to Uther would, I was convinced, establish his innocence or his guilt immediately, and either outcome would relieve me of these agonizing suspicions. In the interim, however, until the return of my father's patrol, I had the pressing problem I had shared with Titus: Who would guard the guards?
I do not know when the idea of a mysterious disappearance had first occurred to me, but it had crystallized in my mind the moment I saw Daffyd in the distance, for my next thought had been that Mod, one of Daffyd's two apprentices, a slim, adolescent, almost androgynous boy, would have come with him. Somehow, I had known immediately, I would substitute Mod for the girl Cassandra, and arrange the exchange in such a way that no one would be aware of it.
That was the basis of my plan. The plan and its implementation, however, had remained disjointed and undefined beyond the fact that their formlessness lay heavy and solid in the pit of my gut like a mass of undigested food. Now, as I thought the matter through, plotting my course of action in my head, the whole mosaic came together and my enthusiasm grew stronger as the final pieces fell convincingly into place. I could achieve little alone, but I had staunch Mends whom I could trust to aid me, and Lucanus the physician, on whom I could rely concerning the welfare of his charge. I knew my plan would work.
Less than an hour after my arrival beneath the scaffolding, I began putting my stratagem into effect. I sought out my friends and assembled them in Lucanus's infirmary,, where I explained the situation, told them what I proposed to do and enlisted their support.
Ludo, one of my oldest friends in Camulod and head of the kitchens of the fort's Commissariat, would play a crucial part in our abduction. Uther had often warned me about Ludo, during our boyhood, citing the man's notorious fondness for youngsters of his own sex, but Ludo had never made any improper advances to me, nor had I ever given him cause to resent me. Now his commitment to this endeavour of mine was absolute and instant. He agreed to empty one of his secure storerooms close to the infirmary within the hour and put it at my disposal. Lucanus undertook to remove Cassandra from his quarters and conceal her safely in the storeroom as soon as it was empty. Mod would immediately take Cassandra's place, his identity disguised with the same kind of dressings in which Lucanus had swathed the girl. Some of the girl's original dressings, stained with her blood, would amplify the effect. When all these arrangements were completed, in a matter of an hour or so, I would mount a strong guard, night and day, over the infirmary, first making sure that every guard had verified Mod's presence and his battered condition—believing him to be Cassandra—for himself. At dusk, Ludo would load a wagon with "supplies" for the villa kitchens, and would transport the injured girl to the bottom of the hill, where Daffyd would be waiting to lead her to a sanctuary where she would be safe from all harm. Later, Mod would "disappear" in safety in the dead of night, crossing in the darkness from the rear door of Lucanus's quarters to the rear door of the kitchens. The guards would be seeking to prevent an intrusion to the physician's quarters; they would never think to look for an escape. The only criticism of my plan came from Lucanus, who demanded to know where we would take the girl. He was extremely unwilling to allow her to be moved at all, doubting her capability to survive such an ordeal, and he was incensed when I refused, claiming the need for secrecy even among ourselves, to divulge Daffyd's destination. In the absence of alternatives, however, he had no choice but to accede, grudgingly, to the urgency facing us all.