Wind-swept North Britannia, where the natives are in the mood for killing . . .

Gaius Petreius Ruso, medicus to the Twentieth Legion, has been posted to the hostile north - and thrown into a no-win situation. Thessalus, the current doctor at the Fort of Coria, has confessed to a grisly murder and his Prefect demands Ruso take charge of the patients and convince Thessalus to retract his confession. Or else. It seems a reputation for solving tricky murders down south isn't always helpful.

Unfortunately, the corpse is offering up few answers other than to suggest that the natives might be more murderous than restless. If Ruso is to identify the killer, he'll need all his wits about him to keep Romans, natives and slave girls from each other's throats.

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I

Many miles south of Coria, Ruso gathered both reins into his left hand, reached down into the saddlebag and took out the pie he had saved from last night. The secret of happiness, he reflected as he munched on the pie, was to enjoy simple pleasures. A good meal. A warm, dry goatskin tent shared with men who neither snored, passed excessive amounts of wind nor imagined that he might want to stay awake listening to jokes. Or symptoms. Last night he had slept the sleep of a happy man.

Ruso had now been in Britannia for eight months, most of them winter. He had learned why the province’s only contribution to fashion was a thick cloak designed to keep out the rain. Rain was not a bad thing, of course, as his brother had reminded him on more than one occasion. But his brother was a farmer and he was talking about proper rain – the sort that cascaded from the heavens to water the earth and fill the aqueducts and wash the drains. British rain was rarely that simple. For days on end, instead of falling, it simply hung around in the air like a wife waiting for you to notice she was sulking.

Still, with commendable optimism, the locals were planning to celebrate the arrival of summer in a few days’ time. And, as if the gods had finally relented, the polished armour plates of the column stretching along the road before him glittered beneath a cheering spring sun.

Ruso wondered how the soldiers stationed up on the border would greet the arrival of men from the Twentieth Legion: men who were better trained, better equipped and better paid. No doubt the officers would make fine speeches about their united mission to keep the Britons in order, leaving the quarrels to the lower ranks, and Ruso to patch up the losers.

In the meantime, though, he was not busy. Any man incapable of several days’ march had been left behind in Deva. The shining armour in front of him was protecting one hundred and seventy healthy men at the peak of their physical prowess. Even the most resentful of local taxpayers would keep their weapons and their opinions hidden at the sight of a force this size, and it was hard to see how a soldier could acquire any injury worse than blisters by observing a steady pace along a straight road. Ruso suppressed a smile. For a few precious days of holiday, he was enjoying the anonymity of being a traveller instead of a military –

‘Doctor!’

His first instinct was to snatch a last mouthful of pie.

‘Doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso, sir?’

Since his other hand was holding the reins, Ruso raised the crumbling pastry in acknowledgement before nudging the horse to the edge of the road, where there was room to halt without obstructing the rest of the column. Moments later he found himself looking down at three people.

Between two legionaries stood a figure that gave the unusual and interesting impression of being two halves of different people stuck together along an unsteady vertical line. Most of the left half, apart from the hand and forearm, was clean. The right half, to the obvious distaste of the soldier restraining that side, was coated with thick mud. There was a bloodied scrape across the clean cheek and a loop of hair stuck out above the one plait that remained blonde, making the owner’s head appear lopsided. Despite these indignities, the young woman had drawn herself up to her full height and stood with head erect. The glint in the eyes, the colour of which Ruso had never found a satisfactory word to describe – but when he did, it would be something to do with the sea – suggested someone would soon be sorry for this.

All three watched as Ruso finished his mouthful and reluctantly rewrapped and consigned the rest of his snack to the saddlebag. Finally he said, ‘ Tilla.’

‘It is me, my lord,’ the young woman agreed.

Ruso glanced from one soldier to the other, noting that the junior of the two had been given the muddy side.

‘Explain.’

‘She says she’s with you, sir,’ said the man on the clean side.

‘Why is she like this?’

As the man said, ‘Fighting, sir,’ she twisted to one side and spat on the ground. The soldier jerked her by the arm.

‘Behave!’

‘You can let go of her,’ said Ruso, bending to unstrap his waterskin. ‘Rinse the mud out of your mouth, Tilla. And watch where you spit. I have told you about this before.’

As Tilla wiped her face and took a long swig from the waterskin, a second and considerably cleaner female appeared, breathless from running up the hill.

‘ There she is!’ shrieked the woman. ‘ Thief! Where’s our money?’ Her attempt to grab the blonde plait was foiled by the legionaries.

Ruso looked at his slave. ‘Are you a thief, Tilla?’

‘She is the thief, my lord,’ his housekeeper replied. ‘Ask her what she charges for bread.’

‘Nobody else is complaining!’ cried the other woman. ‘Look! Can you see anybody complaining?’ She turned back to wave an arm towards the motley trail of mule-handlers and bag-carriers, merchants’ carts and civilians shuffling up the hill in the wake of the soldiers. ‘I’m an honest trader, sir!’ continued the woman, now addressing Ruso. ‘My man stays up half the night baking, we take the trouble to come out here to offer a service to travellers, and then she comes along and decides to help herself. And when we ask for our money all we get is these two ugly great bruisers telling us to clear off!’

If the ugly great bruisers were insulted, they managed not to show it.

‘You seem to have thrown her in the ditch,’ pointed out Ruso, faintly recalling a fat man behind a food stall – the first for miles – at the junction they had just passed. ‘I think that’s enough punishment, don’t you?’

The woman hesitated, as if she were pondering further and more imaginative suggestions. Finally she said, ‘We want our money, sir. It’s only fair.’