Eagles of Dacia Page 28

  The two men, chastened and looking down, embarrassed, at their boots, hurried out. The door clicked shut and the medicus eyed Senova. ‘Wife? Concubine? Slave?’

  Rufinus started to say ‘friend’ in a weak voice but was drowned out as Senova said ‘wife’ firmly.

  ‘Very well. You can stay, but sit there and do not interfere.’

  Rufinus felt the man removing his boots and taking them with a sour sound of disapproval. ‘You are filthy, young man.’

  ‘I’ve been…’

  ‘I don’t care what or where you’ve been. I will treat your back. You will then be escorted to the hospital’s balnea, where you will clean yourself thoroughly with the aid of an orderly, making sure not to get my work wet. Your wife can wait for you in your room, which will be seven-a, next door. A woman might cause something of a stir in a bath house full of naked men.’

  Senova smiled for the first time that day.

  ‘Now,’ the medicus said, leaning over him, ‘let me see. You’ve suffered some horrendous damage in the past. Given the wounds I can identify, you’re hardy and a good, quick healer. As such, this should not cause you trouble long-term. In fact, in days it will have knit enough that you will be able to function relatively normally. Within the month you should be back to full fitness.’

  ‘Really?’ Senova frowned. ‘It looks so bad.’

  ‘It looks worse than it is because of all the blood, young lady. I asked you not to interfere.’

  Senova sat back in a huff and folded her arms, and the medicus went on, gently prodding and eliciting hisses and groans from Rufinus. ‘In fact, the damage is actually minimal for such a weapon. It seems to have been wielded rather inexpertly for pain rather than damage.’

  Rufinus ground his teeth. In his opinion that was expert, rather than inexpert. Celer had been trying not to kill him too quickly. He’d wanted it to last a long time.

  ‘Luckily both blows were with the same arm. A good punishment detail will change arms with each stroke so that the blows cross and do more harm. These blows are parallel and therefore much less trouble and much easier in the treating and healing.’

  Rufinus lay still and grasped the sides of the bed with his hands, trying not to whimper or yelp as the man poked and prodded. Shortly the medicus called for an orderly to fetch everything he needed. Rufinus’ back was washed carefully, though not as comfortably as he had expected.

  ‘You are tensing and hissing, young man. If you are experiencing real pain, I am willing to dose you with poppy juice and hensbane?’

  Rufinus did not have the chance to reply before Senova’s voice cut through the room. ‘No drugs. He will be fine.’

  The medicus frowned at her in disapproval, and then looked to Rufinus.

  ‘She’s right. No drugs.’

  ‘Very well. But try not to tense or shiver. It makes my work more difficult.’

  The washing seemed to take forever and Rufinus felt some distress at the amount of blood that seemed to be removed, spattering the floor in droplets and turning the water in the washing bowl dark red.

  ‘You are clean,’ the man announced. ‘I am about to stitch and bind. Are you sure you do not want poppy juice?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ Rufinus and Senova said simultaneously.

  ‘Very well.’

  The medicus went to work. Senova kept leaning this way and that, admiring the skill of the man. Rufinus half expected her to criticise the medicus or make ‘helpful’ suggestions, and he was quite grateful that she kept silent throughout. The pain was intense, though not as bad as the scourging had been, by any length. The whole task took half an hour. Once the wounds were stitched, he was washed again with a fresh bowl of water, dried gently, and then a salve of honey and herbs was applied across all the damage, followed by strips of cooled linen that clung to his back, held there with sticky honey. A large pad was applied atop that. Senova was then co-opted to help Rufinus to his feet and support him while the medicus washed the rest of his torso and dried it, then bound his whole middle with thick bandages, surprisingly tight. As Rufinus slowly got used to breathing shallowly within the confines of his bindings, he realised that the pain was quite manageable. The medicus had done an excellent job.

  ‘Go to the balneum and wash yourself. An orderly there will help you to do so without wetting the dressings. You stink and you will engender disease and illness if you are not thoroughly clean. I insist on all my patients being cleaned at least twice a day as long as they are in my care.’

  ‘And how long will he be in your care?’ Senova asked.

  ‘I estimate three days. If he is showing significant progress, I may release him after two. If there are complications, then longer. But I anticipate only three days.’

  Three days, Rufinus sighed. Three days of peace and relative luxury, and then Niger had promised to move him somewhere safer and more comfortable. None of it helped him find a way out of this mess, of course, but it was still a vast improvement on the dark shed of shit buckets and villains to which Celer had easy access.

  Senova then waited in room VII A on the medicus’ say-so while the examination room was cleaned up, the medicus moved on to the next case, and Rufinus toddled off in his underwear looking for the hospital’s private bath house.

  The balneum was a small affair, fitted into a corner of the complex where the drains carried all the unpleasantness of a hospital out of the fortress and down beneath the town to the river. A changing room large enough for three people and three small rooms containing hot and cold baths, with a steamy warm room in between.

  An orderly helped him out of his underwear and found the cleaning materials. Rufinus was escorted to the warm room, where he stood feeling rather self-conscious as the orderly washed his lower half roughly, then set about the skin with strigil and oil. Once that was done, he was made to lie across a stool on his front and his shoulders, arms and head were cleaned. Next, a bucket was placed beneath him and his hair was thoroughly washed. Finally, since he could not fully submerge in water, the orderly washed off the oil with warm water again. Despite the man’s best attempts there was a little dampness about the dressings, but Rufinus said nothing, grateful simply to be clean again. He visited the hot bath and was only allowed to sit on the top step, the water barely covering his groin. A big legionary with a bandage around his scalp sitting in the bath at the far side looked at Rufinus as he slipped in but said nothing. One of his eyes kept wandering sideways and it both fascinated and distracted Rufinus watching it. A similar light dip in the cold bath, and finally the orderly pronounced him done and handed him a plain white linen tunic, telling him to return to his room.

  Rufinus stepped out into the corridor that ran around the entire building in a square, rooms leading off every few paces. The smooth marble flooring felt cold, yet comfortable beneath his bare feet. He was starting to feel a whole lot better already.

  The attack took him entirely by surprise, and was over as fast as it began.

  He was calmly wandering along the corridor when a figure stepped out of a side door and delivered an unexpected and incredibly painful punch to his ribs. Rufinus fell against the opposite wall, crying out in pain and alarm. The blow had been to his kidney and hurt like the fires of Tartarus, but that was nothing to the pain all across his back as stitches pulled within the sticky bindings.

  He staggered and righted himself, pulling himself upright and raising his fists as though in the boxing ring. Who was he kidding? His right arm wouldn’t come up because of the pain in the ribs beneath it, and he was lacking in strength and movement. The figure in front of him laughed, and Rufinus felt bile and ire rising up in him.

  Daizus gave him a leering grin as the centurion stepped back. In his other hand he held his muddy boots, his footsteps almost inaudible in just socks.

  ‘Just a reminder from the Thirteenth that nowhere is safe, Rufinus. Make the most of your time in here. The tribune’s sent word to Apulum. Two, maybe three, days and I can pretty much guarantee a de
ath warrant will arrive in return, signed and sealed by the governor. When you leave this hospital it will be to go to the execution post and then the graveyard. And you’re not part of the burial club in any unit round here, so you won’t even get a tombstone. Unknown and forgotten. Just as you should be.’

  Daizus turned and walked off, swiftly. Rufinus stood, breathing hard, recovering from the blow for long moments. The balneum orderly appeared from the baths, gesturing to him.

  ‘Heard you shout, soldier. You alright?’ He hurried toward Rufinus.

  ‘Just slipped. Fell against the wall.’

  ‘Be damned careful,’ admonished the orderly, lifting the white tunic and examining the bindings. ‘No fresh blood. You’ve not torn a stitch I don’t think, but it’s easy enough to do, so go slowly and with more care.’

  Rufinus nodded and returned to his room, where Senova waited with what might pass as sympathy in her eyes. He didn’t mention Daizus as she helped him slip into the bed. Better not to add to her concerns. But…

  Two days. Two days and then death. And Daizus was right. The governor would sign it.

  Two days.

  XIX – Hope springs anew

  Rufinus couldn’t say how he knew things had changed. He just knew.

  For two days now he had languished in the hospital, in that small room with only a bed. Senova had been allowed to visit him only once each day, though with no sign of Acheron, who was not allowed across the threshold and remained in quarters with Luca. Other than that, he had had no visitors. In a way it was a good thing, as other visitors might well have meant Celer or Daizus.

  The day consisted of a languid and repetitive routine for patients.

  Up at the blowing of first watch at the nearby east gate, then to the balneum for a wash and shave, if necessary. Head-wound-and-wandering-eye always seemed to be there, too. Morning food – porridge that was apparently nourishing but tasted like old bread mashed with pond water. Morning appraisal by the medicus. A telling off for moving wrong or having the wrong sort of legs or something like that. Unbinding and checking of damage. Nicely healing each time. Probably still three days. Re-binding along with some unguent that smelled suspiciously like Cassius’ fiery liquor. And, wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Noon meal. Either cheese so mild it was hardly there, or meat boiled for so long that it might well have been cheese, all with bread and butter and just water to drink. Then the afternoon:

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Evening meal. Some kind of stodgy stew manufactured in a cauldron the size of a small province and cooked for so long it was impossible to tell the ingredients apart, even the meat or fish from the vegetables. More bread. More water. More waiting.

  Back to the balneum for another cleansing.

  Evening check by the medicus, more telling off, more unguent and another binding.

  And all of this had been under guard for Rufinus. The medicus may have been the master of his hospital, but Celer had insisted that a guard be maintained and Niger had agreed, putting three men on Rufinus’ room at all times. Two stood outside the door in that small cramped vestibule in the dark, grumbling about having pulled the worst duty, and another standing outside the window, just in case. There was no escape, even if Rufinus had considered fleeing the room into the heart of a sealed legionary fortress to be any kind of escape anyway. The guards went with him at all times, watching him eat, guarding the balneum while he was cleaned, even listening to him crap from just outside the door.

  Two days. Sadly, what might have been a relaxing – if mind-numbingly slow – routine was ruined by the constant tense knowledge that Celer was waiting in his quarters for a courier bearing a death warrant. Once that arrived, all this care over Rufinus’ wellbeing was immaterial.

  He had gone to bed last night when the orderlies blew out the oil lamps, and had lain awake for two hours or more, nervously waiting for that fatal knock at the door, announcing that his death warrant had arrived and that Celer had collected up his scourge once more in preparation. Finally, he had fallen into a fitful sleep, listening to the guards outside the door discussing the relative merits of two of the girls in one of the town’s lower-class establishments. He had dreamed, then, of being on a boat out in the ocean, with Senova and Luca and Acheron and no one else. Totally free and unfettered. It was fairly easy to work out what had triggered that dream.

  But yes, something had now changed.

  Rufinus’ eyes flicked open suddenly, his heart pounding, even on waking. He’d known. Even asleep he had somehow become, or been made, aware of a change. The silence outside the door was different to that he’d noted the past two days. He couldn’t say why, but it was different silence, and that difference had woken him.

  He hauled himself up to the edge of the bed. His back had become little more than a dull ache now, unless he moved sharply or twisted wrong. If he was careful and slow it was quite bearable, so long as he remained tightly bound.

  With a hiss of breath, he pushed himself to his feet. He teetered for a moment, and reached out to the wall to steady himself, shaking and cold and unused to this. On silent bare feet, he padded to the window and peered between the slats of the shutter, which were angled down to prevent easy observation inside and too much intrusion of light from without.

  He could see no feet and legs. Of course, it was perfectly feasible that the guard out there had gone for a surreptitious piss, or was simply leaning against the wall to either side, out of sight. But Rufinus didn’t think so. Heart beating out a staccato rhythm in his chest, he moved across to the door. The room had been kept locked for the last two days except when access was needed. All the hospital’s rooms were lockable only from the outside, in case of violent or deranged patients. Same was true of the shutters on the windows.

  He tentatively tested the handle.

  It turned.

  He pushed.

  It swung silently open into the dark vestibule. He squinted into the gloom.

  Empty.

  His heart picked up the pace once more, thundering away like that wagon on the hill down to the villa all those years ago.

  Why empty? What was happening?

  He almost tripped over the pile outside the door. With some difficulty, thanks to his tight chest bindings, he knelt and felt around in the darkness. Breeches, tunic, belt and boots. A cloak, too. There was an odd thought knocking around in his head that this could be some sort of trap. Perhaps Celer’s request for a death sentence had been refused and the tribune was engineering an attempted escape in order to catch him and execute him legitimately?

  It was plausible. Highly plausible. Apart from the fact that Rufinus could not imagine Clodius Albinus doing anything other than sign and seal the warrant.

  Whatever the case, he was out of time. He’d had a stay of execution tonight, quite literally, but tomorrow would almost certainly see that document arrive and Rufinus executed. Beggars, as they said, could hardly be choosy. He had been offered a line and he had to grasp it, no matter how dangerous or dubious it might seem.

  He grabbed the pile and shuffled back into the room. As quickly and quietly as he could, he slipped into the clothes, hissing with pain as he shrugged the tunic over his shoulders. It was a red wool one, standard for most legions and new, from the feel and smell, too. Fastening the belt took some doing. It was a civilian version with no metal plates, and tucking the end down inside the belt prevented the buckle moving about. The boots were his. They had been cleaned off and oiled, but they were definitely his boots. Throwing the cloak about his shoulders he tied the ends, since there was no brooch in the pile. Carefully, he lifted the boots and carried them in his left hand, slipping back out of his room and into the dark vestibule once more. There, he paused. This could all still be some great horrible trick.

  He had no other option.

  Reaching out, he tried that handle too. It opened.

  The huge
corridor that circled the hospital was dimly-lit with oil lamps in niches every twenty paces, and Rufinus looked this way and that. No movement or noise, apart from the background snoring and groaning of other patients in their rooms, muffled by the doors. He slipped along the corridor toward the entrance, grateful that the medicus had done such a good job, both on the wound and on the bandaging. He felt little more than achy and rather constricted.

  The door to the entrance hall clicked open with an alarmingly loud noise, and Rufinus paused for a moment, worried, heart still thundering. No one reacted. No one came. The door opened fully and the hall was empty. Hair bristling on his neck, Rufinus hurried through the large open space and stopped at the last door.

  There was a chance now that he might have to run at any time. Crouching with difficulty and a little pain, he slipped his boots over bare feet and tied the laces. Rising, he tried the door, amazed that his pulse had not woken the whole fortress.

  The street outside was empty. It was the middle of the night. Men would be on guard at the walls and gates, by the principia, and might well be wandering up and down one of the main roads in the camp, but this was a small side street and rather out of the way. A rising panic over what he might do next disappeared in an instant as his gaze slid sideways to where he knew his room to be, where a soldier should be standing guard on the window. Instead of a tired and bored legionary, two horses were tethered to a ring in the wall two windows further along. His heart almost leapt as he recognised Atalanta. Both animals seemed to be loaded with packs.

  What in Hades’ name was going on?

  He let the door shut quietly and hurried over to the horses, worrying about his boots crunching on the stone and gravel of the road. He reached Atalanta and checked her over. She had been well cared for, fed and groomed, and the packs on her back were mostly his own travelling packs with two new bags added. The other horse was less loaded down, but had several packs of its own. He was a bay gelding, beautiful and strong. A soldier’s horse. A cavalryman’s horse.