Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire Read Free Page A

slave to look after the house if he still had to do all the thinking himself?
    A voice rose unbidden from the depths of his memory. For goodness’ sake, Gaius, it said. If it weren’t for me the staff would walk all over us!
    He was glad Claudia was not here to see him now.
    “Tilla,” he murmured, “Tell me you don’t make a habit of stealing.”
    She looked surprised. “Oh no, my lord.”
    “Good. So what is this?”
    “I am your servant,” she continued. “I will not let you be cheated.”
    “What?”
    “I make things fair.”
    “Are you telling me,” said Ruso, glancing around again to make sure he could not be overheard, “that if you don’t approve of the price you help yourself?”
    “Is not right that people grow fat on cheating when my lord is a good man and has no—”
    “That’s hardly the point, Tilla!” Ruso sat back in the saddle, frowned at the whiskery ears of his horse, and wondered how to explain something so fundamental it had never occurred to him to question it. “Ever since I began my work as a doctor,” he observed, “I have done my best to build up a good reputation.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “I want men to say, ‘There is Gaius Petreius Ruso, the medicus who can be trusted.’ ”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “ ‘He doesn’t pretend to know everything, but he does his best for his patients.’ ”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “This has been my ambition.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “If it ever becomes my ambition to have them say, ‘There is Gaius Petreius Ruso, the man who sends his servant out to steal for him,’ I will let you know.”
    “I understand this,” came the reply. “I am doing it before you tell me.”

F ELIX WAS GOING to have to do something about the native. The man had been pestering him for days. Now he had stepped right up to the table in front of everyone in Susanna’s and started jabbering again about honor. About the law. About compensation. Felix had explained, politely, that he couldn’t be breaking his promise, because he’d never made one.
    That was when the native had begun to shout about cows. Felix began to lose patience with him. He didn’t have one cow to hand over, let alone five, even if he’d wanted to. “Sorry, pal. It’s not that I don’t want to help, but it’s not really my problem, is it?”
    Any normal native would have shut up and slunk off home to his smoky house and his skinny children, glad that he hadn’t been taken outside for a beating. This one started yelling about gods and shame and vengeance.
    Felix held his hands up. “Look, pal, I’ve said it nicely. I’m sorry if you think I’ve been plowing your field, but she never said a word about you to me. You can have her. I’ll back off.”
    Instead of calming down, the native had tried to climb over the table and grab him. The other lads had thrown the man out into the street. What had he been thinking of? One basket maker taking on four Batavian infantrymen? Especially four Batavian infantrymen who found themselves in a bar where the beer had run out. When he came back for more, already with one eye swelling up and blood dribbling from a split lip, they were all so surprised that they burst out laughing.
    They were pretty soft with him, considering. They left him in a fit state to run away, still shouting to the street that everyone would see what happened around here to men who didn’t honor their debts.
    More beer arrived. They were still laughing and searching for imaginary cows under the table when they heard the trumpet announcing the approach of curfew. The others got to their feet. Felix glanced across to where Dari the waitress was showing more than a glimpse of cleavage as she stretched forward to clear tables. “I’ll be in later,” he said. “I’ve got some business.”
    When they had gone, Felix slid his arm around Dari’s waist. “You’re not going to let me down, are you?” he said.

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    F ROM THE WAY the medicus was hunched over the writing