Terra Incognita Read Online Free PDF Page A

somehow despite her insistence that this was the name of the god she had seen in the yard, it had still put him off his stroke. Unabashed, she had proceeded to speculate about what this divine visitation might mean. His insistence on resuming his own more earthly visitation was greeted with tolerance rather than enthusiasm.
    She had woken him again in the middle of the night, babbling in British. It was a moment before he realized she was talking in her sleep, no doubt to some god with antlers. After she fell silent he had lain awake in the dark, telling himself that it was completely irrational to be jealous of a trick of the light, and that he was only starting to wonder if she really had seen something because he was not properly awake himself.
    Another itch had sprouted in the hollow between his shoulder blades. When the column stopped for water, he would have to dig out his baggage and try and find some calming ointment. In the meantime, his fingers slid up between two of the layers of iron plates, but they were now trapped at an awkward angle and he could not move them enough to have any effect. Twisting sideways, he tried plunging the hand down the back of his neck instead. The probing fingers fell just short of their destination.
    Several instruments that would have done the job safely were in his medical case, but that was back on one of the carts. He tried grabbing the top and bottom of his tunic, and pulling it taut while wriggling against it like a cow trying to scratch itself on a gate. That did not work either.
    Finally he thumped at his back with his fist before noticing that several of the legionaries tromping up the slope beside him were watching with interest. Among them was his clerk.
    “Are you all right, sir?”
    “Fine, thank you, Albanus.” He wondered whether to add, “Just doing some morning stretches,” but decided that would make it worse.
    He urged the horse forward, musing upon the pointlessness of formal education. Instead of wasting time arguing over dilemmas unrelated to real life, bright young minds should be set useful questions. Questions such as: A man is offered a chance to share a room with a bad-tempered woman and several biting insects, or a tent with his comrades and a large quantity of rainwater. Which should he choose?
    Moments later he was level with a centurion whose nose appeared to have been attached to his face as an afterthought. This was Postumus, the man in whose tent he had failed to appear last night. Ruso was anticipating some cutting comment on his absence, but Postumus was busy scowling at the horizon.
    “Little bugger,” Postumus observed.
    Following the centurion’s gaze, Ruso saw the lone rider still silhouetted against the gathering clouds. “There’s something to be said for joining the cavalry,” he said.
    “He’s not cavalry.”
    “No?” At this distance, it was impossible to make out whether the horseman was carrying weapons. “Who is he, then?”
    “That’s exactly what he wants us to ask.”
    “Ah,” said Ruso, surprised to find he had fallen into some sort of trap. Then, as the outline of the horse narrowed and began to sink into the rise of the hill, “He’s going.”
    “He’ll pop up again farther along,” said Postumus. “Always where we can see him and always just out of range. He’s following us.”
    “I’ve seen him before,” said Ruso.
    “One of the patrols went after him yesterday and he outran them. Vanished into the woods and couldn’t be tracked.”
    “What do you think he wants?”
    “Well, he’s not a lookout,” said Postumus. “They’d use some snot-nosed little goatherd for that.”
    “They?”
    “The natives,” said Postumus. “I reckon all that one wants is to get on our nerves.”
    “Ah.”
    “Which is why, for the time being, we’re ignoring him.”
    “Right,” said Ruso, guessing that the watcher’s presence had been the cause of yesterday’s unexplained order to don helmets. “So we do know