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long getting used to it would take. He said, "Can't the legion give us somebody to help keep the place straight?"
    Valens winced. "If you want some squinty-eyed misery who makes a ridiculous fuss about a little bit of a mess."
    Ruso deduced that this had already been tried. "What about a private arrangement? It wouldn't cost much between us."
    "The servants here aren't much better than the beer, I'm afraid. The first one we tried had a bad back. The next one kept sitting on the floor and crying and we didn't have the heart to beat her, so we sold her. At a loss, of course. Then we tried hiring a local girl, but Marius saw her kick the dog, so she had to go." Valens leaned back and indicated the size of the room with a sweep of his arm. The motion sent beer slopping over the side of his cup. "This isn't a big house, is it?" He transferred the beer to the other hand and wiped his wet fingers on the couch. "It can't be much work. I mean, we don't even use that end room." The beer slopped again, indicating the direction of the corner room, which had been abandoned as impossibly damp and was now growing several fine blooms of strange-smelling mold. "There's only the two of us to cook for," he continued, "and half the time we eat at the hospital. Can your girl cook?"
    "At the moment she can't even stand up."
    "No matter. We don't want one in a splint anyway. We want some nice healthy lass who's handy with dogs and cleaning."
    "And wants a challenge," observed Ruso, glancing through the open door into the earthquake zone that was Valens's bedroom. "Where would we put this healthy lass?"
    "In the kitchen, I suppose. When your furniture turns up, she could have the mattress off that bed you're using.
    "Ruso did not reply.
    "We could always get rid of her later if your girl shows promise," Valens added.
    "I won't be keeping her. I'll start looking for a buyer as soon as she can be moved."
    "You'll just have to hope Priscus doesn't come back in the meantime."
    Ruso frowned. "Doesn't anybody know when he's coming?"
    "Doubt it. He likes to take people by surprise. He thinks it keeps them on their toes. He's not keen on private patients unless they pay well. By the way, that other dog isn't yours too, is it?"
    Ruso said, "What other dog?"
    "I didn't think it was. I'll tell them to get rid of it."
    Other dog?
    Ruso yawned. The girl in the mortuary was not his problem, but if he didn't get the live one out of the hospital soon, not only would he get off on the wrong foot with Chief Administrative Officer Priscus, but he would be saddled with every other passing stray for whom no one else wanted to take responsibility.
    Somewhere beyond the ill-fitting shutters of his bedroom window, a trumpet sounded the change of watch. He rolled over, wriggled to avoid the lump that always seemed directly under his shoulder no matter how many times he turned the mattress or shook the straw around, and closed his eyes. He was just dropping off to sleep when he heard a knock on his door and Valens asking if he was awake.
    "No."
    "Are you busy in the morning?"
    "Yes."
    "Too bad. Somebody's going to have to go down to Merula's."
    "Uh. Send an orderly."
    "It ought to be somebody official, and I'm on duty."
    "Can't it wait?"
    "No. One of the men's identified that body."

6
    T HE SHUTTERS HAD been pushed back to let in the autumn sunshine. Beyond them, Merula's was almost empty. Benches were upturned on the tables. A boy of eight or nine was shoveling ash out of the grate under the hot drinks counter. A young woman with lank hair tucked behind her ears was sweeping sawdust into a gray pile with limp strokes of a broom. A buxom girl was barefoot on a stool, displaying a dainty silver chain around one ankle as she reached above a lamp bracket to wipe at the smudges on the wall. Ruso looked at the girl with the ankle bracelet. He thought of the discolored figure stretched out on the mortuary table. He w* shed he hadn't.
    A door opened somewhere at the back of the bar