Read Online Medicus by Ruth Downie - Free Book Online Page B

fishermen. You could ask them."
    The second spear shook his head. "Doesn't matter. As long as we can't be blamed for it. I'll send someone over to calm them down. And tell them to forget any ideas about compensation."
    "Thank you, sir. Any luck finding the culprit yet?"
    "No. Don't expect we ever will. We'll keep an eye open, but I doubt much will turn up. No witnesses, of course. It's the usual story: These people are quick enough to complain, but blind, deaf, and dumb when you start asking questions. Turns out the girl was offered protection and chose not to take it."
    "She might not have understood the dangers, sir. She'd only been here ten days." It was about the same length of time that Ruso had been here himself.
    "Hmph. Not what you'd call bright, these locals. Did she think they'd got two of our lads down there on security for fun?"
    Ruso said nothing.
    "This will knock a bit of sense into the rest of them," the second spear went on. "At least for a month or two. Bloody nuisance, all of them. Haven't been here long, have you?"
    "No, sir."
    "In a civilized country—even in parts of Britannia—we'd leave the town council or tribal elders or what-have-you to sort this kind of thing out. 'Round here, just because they're living on army land, they expect us to wipe their backsides for them. If it was up to me, I'd have a curfew and flog anything that moves after dark. Still, we should have a bit of peace and quiet for a while. You won't find many women hanging around the streets tonight."
    "No, sir," agreed Ruso, who had not planned to look for any.
    The second spear leaned back in his chair and folded his arms."When I was up with the Ninth," he said, "one of the medics took in a body. Thought he was being helpful. The natives got the idea he was cutting it up for anatomy lessons. Caused a riot. Ended up with a whole lot more bodies, three of them ours. My advice, Doctor, is not to get involved with the locals if you can help it."
    "Yes sir," said Ruso, glad the second spear did not know who was in Room Twelve.

12
    R USO HAD DISCHARGED his duties for the day. There was nothing further he could do about the signaler's cataracts. His superiors would make any decisions about the dead girl, and he had left orders that he was to be called if there was a crisis with the live one. Alone in his bedroom, he was free to get on with drafting the next section of the Concise Guide to Military First Aid. Unfortunately, it was proving more difficult than he had expected.
    He had imagined that once his reference books arrived, he would get straight back to work, freshly motivated after so long a break. Instead, he was sitting in his room scowling at a writing tablet on which he had written a title and two lines of notes before delving into the trunk to look up something that turned out to be in a different scroll from the one he expected and to be less relevant than he had remembered it. The bed was now scattered with unraveled scrolls and note tablets and a few scraps of broken pot on which he had scribbled passing thoughts when nothing else had been handy, and he was still stuck on line three. His mind, apparently unwilling to apply itself to ordering his work, seemed to be seizing every chance to wander off. It was futile and unproductive to wonder why a slave with a "posh voice" and the ability to read her own name had been working in a bar in the first place. No wonder Merula had said she was not suited to the job. But then why—
    A shout of laughter from beyond his bedroom door brought Ruso back to his task. He reread what he had written, picked up the stylus, then paused to glance over his notes again. It didn't help that Valens was on call this evening, unable to leave the house unless summoned by duty. Across in what passed for a dining room (they had not bothered to shut the door, of course), his colleague was discussing horses with a couple of friends who had loud voices and even louder laughs. Valens had invited him to join