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that Hadrian had gone back across the sea to Gaul, Ruso was suffering the fate of teacher’s pet when Teacher had left the room. He supposed he was lucky his fellow officers hadn’t stripped his clothes off, tied him to a tree, and made him eat his homework.
    Valens said, “I’ll ask around at Magnis, see if somebody knows where he’s gone. From the sound of it I can’t imagine anyone will have poached him.”
    Ruso glanced past Valens at Pandora’s cupboard, and pictured again the words He is rather a sensitive boy in Albanus’s neat handwriting. It was hard to imagine how a sensitive boy could have lasted beyond the first week of basic training. Indeed, unless the bitten fingernails betrayed a nervous disposition, Candidus had shown no sign of sensitivity to anything except the dangers of hard work. At every opportunity, he had abandoned his duties and wandered around the hospital, chatting to people. Several of them seemed to have been given the impression that he was in charge. Ruso might have been almost glad to lose him, except that he had then done something unexpected.
    Immediately after an exasperated Ruso had ordered him to get his backside on that stool and not move or speak until he had sorted out the orders for blankets and buckets and updated the repairs list, Candidus stood to attention behind his desk and said, “May I speak, sir?”
    “Briefly.”
    “I’ve made a bit of a mess of things so far, haven’t I, sir?”
    “Yes,” said Ruso, surprised by the young man’s frankness.
    “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve never been a clerk before, sir. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice and I’d just pick it up as I went along.”
    “Then you should have stayed at your desk and listened to what you were told.”
    Candidus swallowed. “Are you going to get rid of me, sir?”
    Ruso sighed and leaned against Pandora’s cupboard. If the lad hadn’t had the same skinny build and innocent eyes and floppy black hair as his uncle, it might have been easier to be angry with him. “Just get those orders done. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
    “Thank you, sir. I’ll do them straightaway.”
    “Good,” Ruso said, not sure if he was being taken for a ride. “If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask. Don’t guess.”
    “Yes, sir. I will. And I won’t. And I’ll do better from now on, sir.”
    But the next day Candidus did not turn up, and nobody had seen him since.
    It was a moment before Ruso registered what Valens was pointing at. “Is there something underneath that chicken?”
    Ruso reached underneath the soft feathers and drew out the thin slivers of another writing tablet. As he did so he felt a stab of guilt. He was already late. Tilla would be waiting, and the hen would still be dead when he got back tomorrow. On the other hand, he needed to check that it belonged to him, especially since he might run across the donor by accident and fail to thank them because he had not paused a few short moments to open a—
    “Oh, hell.”
    “From somebody you don’t like?”
    “It’s from Albanus.”
    “Albanus sent a dead bird all the way from Verulamium?”
    Ruso scanned the letter. There was no mention of a hen, which he assumed must have come from somewhere else.
     
    To Doctor Ruso, greetings.
    I am happy to say that I hope to see you soon. Fortune has granted me a post as tutor to the children of a prefect who is currently stationed at Arbeia.
    I shall try to call upon both yourself and Candidus, who I hope is settling in well. I cannot repeat too often how grateful I am to you for taking him in.
    Thank you for your good wishes to Grata, which I regret I have been unable to convey to her. Believe me, sir, if you knew her as well as I now do, you would not have sent them.
    I hope you are enjoying the best of fortune, along with your wife and Officer Valens and his family.
    Farewell.
     
    Valens said, “What do you think he’s found out about Grata?”
    But Ruso was not interested in why