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silly Saufeia."
    Poor silly Saufeia, who had ended up naked and muddy and practically bald, unmourned until a gawker who shouldn't have been in the mortuary at all recognized the birthmark on her thigh.
    "Was there any family?"
    Merula shook her head.
    "I don't suppose you have any idea who might have—?"
    "Who might have taken advantage of a girl looking for business with no protection? Outside an army base?"
    There was no need to answer.
    Merula glanced through the open shutters to where one of the doormen was leaning against the wall of the bakery opposite, eating. "The boys will blame themselves, but they can't watch them day and night." A bitter smile twisted the red lips. "After we realized she'd gone, the girls were hoping she'd run off with a customer. It does happen."
    "You didn't report her as a runaway?"
    "We were busy. I suppose we might have passed her name on to a slave hunter sooner or later, but to be honest, I doubt she would have been worth the recovery fee. She wasn't really suitable for this kind of work."
    "When did you last see her?"
    "Five days ago. Early in the evening. She must have sneaked out when nobody was looking."
    Ruso said, "She appears to have died quite soon after that."
    Merula understood. "I will make the funeral arrangements as quickly as possible."
    Relieved, Ruso got to his feet. He acknowledged the woman's thanks with a nod. Her composure had made a difficult task much easier than it might have been.
    The girls emerged from the kitchen with a promptness that could only mean they had been listening behind the door. Ruso was passing Stichus in the doorway when a voice called, "Sir?"
    He turned. Chloe, with the lank-haired girl hovering behind her, said, "You don't know who did it, do you, sir?"
    Ruso shook his head. "I don't," he said. "But if you remember anything suspicious, you should go to the fort right away and ask for the duty civilian liaison officer."

7
    S HE RAN FOR the door. The fat one got there first. She dodged behind a stack of barrels. He came after her. She tried to scramble out. The barrels were crashing down and rolling across the floor. She tried to leap free but her feet slipped in something wet. The smell of beer mingled with the stink of the fat one's breath as he loomed above her, raising the crowbar, his mouth twisted with the shouting. She tried to shield herself. The crowbar swung down. She heard the crack. Felt herself jolt with the blow.
    She was in the white room again. The familiar pain was pulsing through her arm, but instead of her own bones looking back at her, the arm was hidden inside a thick bandage and strapped across her chest.
    So. She was still in this world.
    The door was opening. She closed her eyes. A hand was laid on her forehead. In the ugly sounds of Latin the man announced that it was not a fever.
    "She's having bad dreams," he said, apparently talking to someone else. She pretended to be asleep, trying not to flinch as the bandages were tweaked and tidied while two men talked about postoperative fevers and swelling and things she did not understand.
    Bad dreams.
    She must have called out. She hoped she had not spoken in Latin. She tried to remember, but her mind had been traveling to strange places, fleeing from the pain and the bitter medicine the man kept making her drink. He had told her she was safe from the fat one, but what did he know? When the medicine gave her sleep, the fat one returned.
    There were other dreams too. A man dressed in green who held her down and whispered in her ear while wolves tore at her arm. Voices echoing behind closed doors. Birds singing. The sun with four corners—
    No. She must try to think clearly. The sun has no corners. The white room has a square window in the outside wall. I am in a white bed. A tall thin table stands beside the bed. A black cup and a jug are on the table. Behind the door is a stool. The man who brought the medicine had pulled a stool beside the bed and had sat down to ask, "Quid