Resting his fingers on a cold wrist with a pulse that was too weak and too fast, Ruso told him that Tilla was praying to the local gods on his behalf. The lad’s cadaverous attempt at a smile of thanks was interrupted by a hiccup. Ruso exchanged a glance with Pera, who had just entered the room. Hiccuping might sound trivial, but for a man in Austalis’s condition it was a bad sign. Ruso observed him for a few minutes, checked the dressings, and promised to return in a couple of hours, not adding that there would still be enough light to perform the amputation. He had no idea whether anything would have changed in two hours. He was just putting off the decision, and he knew it. Geminus had shaken his confidence. How could he have been so wrong? Why had he listened to the recruits but not to the medics? Why had he believed every word he had been told? Because he liked the recruits, and he didn’t like Geminus. Because Geminus and Dexter’s blame-the-natives attitude had annoyed him from the moment he’d arrived here.
