Tabula Rasa

Name: Tabula Rasa
Rating: 4.26 (3117 reviews)

by Ruth Downie Book 6 in the The Medicus series.

First published 2014

Amazon

4.3(3,117)

Ruso serves the troops and labourers building Hadrian’s Wall while Tilla attempts to mediate between Roman officials and local communities whose land and customs are being disrupted. The disappearance of Ruso’s clerk is followed by the loss of a British boy whose family believes the Romans are responsible.

Rumours of a body hidden inside the wall threaten to turn mistrust into open violence. Ruso and Tilla must find both missing people while commanders press ahead with construction and each side interprets the other’s secrecy as proof of guilt.

Hadrian’s Wall is still a construction site rather than a settled frontier, so military engineering disrupts farms, movement and local authority long before the barrier is complete. Ruso’s search for the missing child therefore becomes part of a larger question about what Roman occupation means to communities whose land is being reorganised around forts, roads and military labour.