Free Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie Page B

been done afterward. How much blood was there?”
    “The cause of death in the report needs to be consistent with the statements already made. With no mention of anything missing.”
    “What’s true is less important than what people believe?”
    “You were the one who asked to be involved.”
    “If I put down the cause of death as head injuries,” pointed out Ruso, “And then the head turns up—”
    “If it turns up, Doctor, particularly if it turns up in native hands, your professional reputation will be the least of our problems. Now if you have everything you need, I’ll leave you with Audax. As you’ll appreciate, I’m having a rather busy day.”
    As Ruso was wondering whether he could possibly write a postmortem report that left out “cause of death” altogether, Centurion Audax entered, bringing the water and a welcome waft of slightly clearer air from the corridor.
    “You’re another of these doctor fellers, then,” the centurion observed, eyeing Ruso as if he were some kind of interesting insect. “Not mad, are you?”
    “Not as far as I know.”
    “Well, you won’t find anything wrong with me. Or my men.”
    “Good,” said Ruso, placing the water on a side table.
    The centurion lifted his chin slightly, narrowing his eyes as if he was not sure whether Ruso was being sarcastic. “Want to know why?”
    There were several things that Ruso wanted to know. They included the whereabouts of the rest of the corpse, the circumstances of its discovery, what it had looked like before it was washed, and what the hell he was going to put on his report. The reasons for Audax’s good health were not of immediate relevance, but clearly he was going to have to listen to them before he could find out anything else.
    “Doctor Scribonius’s Tonic,” announced Audax.
    “Really?” Ruso had never heard of this particular medicine, but he was not surprised. A public desperate for health and wary of doctors provided a willing market for any number of wonder cures. A few were genuine, most useless, and some positively dangerous.
    “A dose of Doctor Scribonius,” said Audax, “and a swim in the river every morning.”
    “That sounds very healthy,” said Ruso, turning back to the body. “Can you tell me—”
    “Take a look at this.” The centurion had lifted one leg in the air as if he were about to perform a dance. “See?”
    Ruso guessed that he was supposed to be admiring the ragged four-inch scar that ran from just above the knee to the outside of the thigh. “How did that happen?”
    “Arrow,” said Audax, as casually as another man might have said, “Splinter.” “Pulled it out and stitched it myself.”
    “Very impressive,” said Ruso, wondering if the centurion cut his hair himself too.
    The leg was lowered. “That’s what the doctor said.”
    There was a pause. Ruso suspected he was supposed to fill it by announcing that he had decided to give up wasting his time with medicine and become a plumber. “Well,” he said, “it sounds as though I won’t be seeing many of your men while I’m here. Now, about this—”
    “If you get one and he’s fit to stand, you send him straight back to me. It’s no good me training them up if they can sneak across to you and have every sniffle blamed on breathing bad air and eating the wrong thing for dinner.”
    “I’ll bear that in mind,” said Ruso, recognizing a garbled parody of other men’s careful and considered work on the causes of disease. “When you found this body—”
    “My men’s job is to eat what they’re given, go where they’re told, and do what I tell them when they get there. It won’t do them a scrap of good to lie around the infirmary feeling sorry for themselves.”
    It was the second time this afternoon that Ruso had been told what his diagnosis should be. “So, as one of your men, Felix was in good health?” he asked, finally seeing a way to corral Audax and steer him toward the subject.
    Audax at last paid