Caveat emptor mi-4

by Ruth Downie

  “If you can find somebody who’ll do this job cheaper,” said Ruso, “go ahead. You’d be saving treasury money.”

  Firmus glanced at the clerk, who shook his head. “I’ve inquired about the investigator we usually use, sir. He’s not available.”

  “Why not?”

  “Knifed by a farmer who didn’t want to pay his corn tax, sir.”

  Firmus wrinkled his patrician nose.

  “But that was up North, sir,” the clerk assured Ruso. “The natives have more manners down here.”

  Ruso, who had spent several years serving up North, hoped he was right.

  “Well, we don’t have a choice,” said Firmus. He turned to the clerk. “Give him ten denarii. Ruso, after that you’ll have to send a note of your costs into the office and I’ll ask my-I’ll ask the procurator if they can be reimbursed.”

  The clerk leaned closer and murmured, “You’ll want to set a maximum sum, sir. A limit beyond which further authorization-”

  “Thirty denarii,” said Firmus, suddenly decisive.

  “Are you quite sure, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s your decision, of course, sir-”

  “Yes, it is.”

  The clerk gave Ruso a hard stare before gliding out of the room.

  Firmus’s chair scraped back across the concrete as he rose to ask the most intelligent question of the whole meeting. “Am I doing the right thing in hiring you, Ruso?”

  “You’re doing something,” Ruso parried.

  “But is it the right thing?”

  “Nobody ever knows that until later,” said Ruso, warming to the youth. “If the first thing doesn’t work, you try something else. After that, it’s up to fate.”

  He was glad none of his patients were listening.

  6

  The baby’s squashed features held an expression of puzzlement, as if he would work out what had just happened to him if he lay quietly and thought about it for long enough. Tilla lifted a loose strand of his mother’s hair-the same color as his own-from his face without waking her, and bent to kiss the top of his head. Then she tucked the bundle of soiled bedding and washcloths under one arm, picked up the basin of water, and nudged the door open with her foot.

  Downstairs, she could hear muffled voices from Valens’s consulting rooms. Her husband’s was not among them. He had gone out to talk to a man in an office about hunting for the baby’s missing father.

  Still faintly surprised every time she took a step and found that the floor was not rolling beneath her feet, she made her way to the back of the house. The slave boy rammed the dirty linen into the top of a bag that smelled as though someone should have taken it to the laundry days ago, and then flung the contents of the bowl out the back door into a display of last year’s dead plants.

  On the way back upstairs, Tilla wondered again what had happened between Valens and Serena. This could not be a planned absence. A grand house like this, with consulting rooms and corridors and more beds than people, was impossible to manage without the staff to run the kitchen and trim the lamps and sweep the floors and beat the mats. Or to open the shutters and let some light into the upstairs rooms so that guests could see to unpack.

  Camma was still asleep. The baby’s eyes were closed. Tilla watched to make sure he was breathing, then went back to her own room to fold the heap of clothes she had tipped onto the mattress in her hunt for something clean for the woman to wear. She crouched down and shoved the crate of crockery out of sight under the bed. With luck, they would soon have enough money for lodgings where there would be room to use it. She lifted a second box onto the mattress and unbuckled the strap.

  Inside was a collection of swaddling bandages and little tunics and soft leather bootees. Cushioned in the middle of a small folded blanket was a pottery feeder with a baby-sized spout. All were items that her new sister-in-law in Gaul hoped never to need again. “They’re hardly worn,” she had said, insisting Tilla take the box as they were tying the last of the luggage onto the farm cart and countering her objections with, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be needing them soon!”

  The words had been spoken with the casual incomprehension of a woman who had five healthy children.

  Her husband had also told her that a baby would happen before long, and that he was not worrying. For some reason this was supposed to reassure her. But she did worry, because even though he was a medicus, he did not know the whole of the story.

  There were things that a man might think he should be told when a woman agreed to marry him. She had chosen not to mention several of them. But lately one had floated up from the depths of her past like a bloated and long-dead frog surfacing in a pond after the ice had melted. She fingered the sheepskin of a little boot and wondered if the gods were angry with her.

  She had not lied to him. Not about that, anyway. She had tried to drop hints, but he had not understood. She was not sorry. Men were unreasonable about that sort of thing. Especially Roman men, who seemed to have one standard for women and another one for wives, as if wives were not women but were creatures that arrived wrapped and packaged straight from the heavens with no past-except perhaps being somebody else’s wife, which was respectable enough. Roman females were, it seemed, expected to spend their early years waiting to become wives. After that it was their duty to boss the servants about, make things out of wool, and produce lots of children. It was perhaps no wonder that they sometimes lost their tempers and flounced off, taking the servants with them.

  She had spun yet another fleece and made a few braids on the journey-there was not much else for a passenger to do on board ship-but she had no servants to boss, and instead of children, she had produced only a monthly disappointment.

  Across the sea in Gaul, she had tried the herbs and charms that worked for other women. She had prayed to Christos too. It had annoyed the Medicus, and perhaps it had annoyed Christos as well. All through the chill of winter, the medicines had failed and the prayers had been ignored-perhaps because she was neither sorry for her sins nor ready to forgive her enemies.

  Now that she was back on her native island, things might be better. Even if her own goddess could not hear her down among the Southerners, there would be other gods that she could bargain with. Gods who were not interested in sins or forgiving people. Gods who would not care what you had done last time you were with child. Gods who would reward you for helping other women bring new life into the world, and would perhaps understand how hard it was for you to give their babies back to them.

  The apprentices seemed happy to watch mother and baby for her while she went out. Valens had promised he would keep an eye on them. He had politely not mentioned that an hour ago she had told him to get those boys out of the room right now and clear off himself.

  She stepped out into the cool air of a bright spring afternoon. The great cities of Gaul had smelled dusty and sweaty, but this place smelled of fish and woodsmoke, sewers and stale beer. She followed an old woman and a heavily laden donkey down the narrow street to where the breeze was chopping up the surface of the Tamesis into jewels.

  The great river had sunk into the middle of his channel since this morning. Gulls were perched on the masts of ships that lay beside the wharf at odd angles, like stranded fish, waiting for the tide to lift them off the mud. Ahead of her, a slave was positioning a sign above a warehouse door. She dodged aside as his companion stepped back to see if it was level. A youth overtook her, trundling an empty handcart that bounced and boomed with every bump in the road. Over the din, a soldier and a dark-skinned man were arguing across a stack of barrels. Nobody paid her any attention. Nobody stared at her blond hair or commented on her clothes. She was home.

  Just past the bridge, a woman was dozing beside a fish stall. Tilla watched as a chunk of bread slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. A couple of pigeons pattered toward it, but Tilla got there first. She shook the woman by the shoulder.

  The woman jerked to attention and cried in Latin,
“Fresh in this afternoon, lovely mackerel! Oysters from Camulodunum!”

  Tilla pressed the bread into her hand and said in her own language, “You dropped it.”

  The woman blew on the bread, examined it, and wiped at the dust with a grimy fist before trying again in British with a strong Southern accent. “Fresh mackerel for you, miss? Oysters? Eels?”

  “No fish,” said Tilla. “I am a stranger here. I’m looking for three people. The first is a man of thirty-four named Julius Asper. Brown hair and a scar under one eye.”

  The woman shook her head. “Never heard of him.” She had never seen Julius Bericus, either.

  “Never mind. Can you tell me of a woman who helps other women?”

  The fish seller looked her up and down. “Well, it’s not childbirth. Flux? Husband trouble? Abortion?”

  When Tilla did not answer, she said, “Barren, is that it?”

  “That is between me and the gods.”

  “There’s a centurion’s widow beside the bathhouse,” suggested the woman, not sounding very confident. “That’s where the officers’ wives go. But I hear old Emer has powerful medicines.”

  Tilla wondered briefly what her husband would make of her seeking old Emer’s opinion and decided it was another thing he need not know. “Where can I find this Emer?” she asked.

  7

  The expenditure clerk with no front teeth was of little help, but the clerks of the income department in the procurator’s office were clearly delighted to be allowed to discuss the latest scandal instead of sitting hunched in silence over their ink pots. Julius Asper was swiftly confirmed as the tax collector for Verulamium, with a description matching the one Camma had given. The existence of a brother was a matter of some debate, although all were convinced they would have noticed a man with half an ear. What was without doubt was that Verulamium had been due to deliver seven thousand five hundred and thirty-two denarii three days ago. It had not arrived. This was unusual, since the town always paid on time.

  “Unlike some,” added one of the clerks, eliciting murmurs of agreement. Ruso suspected that complaining about the lateness of tax collectors was a regular office pastime when they did not have the whereabouts of missing ones to ponder.

  Nobody had known anything about Julius Asper’s wife until she had arrived this morning, which was hardly surprising. There was an enthusiastic discussion about where two men with a lot of money might have gone, but when Ruso probed further it was clear they did not know how Asper might have traveled, or anything about his usual security arrangements. In the past he might have had one, perhaps two, or possibly three henchmen, but nobody had paid much attention and none could recall any names. To the staff’s obvious disappointment, Ruso thanked them and declared that he would not take up any more of their time.

  The gate guards could not remember anything at all about Julius Asper but confirmed Ruso’s impression that no sensible tax collector would wander around with a large sum of money and no proper security. No, they could not remember ever seeing a man with only half of one ear, but if he were guarding the tax money, might he not be wearing a helmet?

  Having confirmed at least some of Camma’s story, Ruso spent what was left of the afternoon on a fruitless but necessary round of visits to ships and warehouses, offices and inns, a cheerful brothel and a depressing one, and the local baths. Despite the offer of a reward-something he had forgotten to warn Firmus about-nobody could remember a man with graying brown hair and a scar beneath the right eye, who might or might not be calling himself Julius Asper. Nor could they recall Julius Bericus, or his mangled ear.

  The sun was beginning to slide down toward the horizon, and Ruso was hungry. For all he knew, the brothers might have avoided the obvious route south and fled in some other direction. He would have to go to Verulamium tomorrow and start again from there.

  He turned away from the river and headed back to find out where Valens was thinking of buying tonight’s dinner. He hoped it was none of the places he had visited so far.

  He would not have noticed the slight figure approaching along the street but for the two small boys who were following and imitating his gait. It was a moment before he realized the figure was calling to him.

  “Doctor Gaius Petrieus, sir!”

  Ruso stopped. “Albanus?”

  He blinked in surprise at his former clerk. Neither seemed to know whether to embrace the other. Albanus solved the problem with a snappy military salute that was immediately parodied behind him. Ruso returned the salute and glared at the boys, who fled.

  Invalided out of the army, Albanus was attempting to make a living by teaching boys like the ones Ruso had just frightened away. Although, as he observed, most of the boys were even less eager to learn than their parents were to pay: a fact which was borne out by the patches on his tunic. “I get by, sir. But if you need a clerk, I’d be very happy to help.”

  “Not at the moment, I’m afraid. I’ve got a temporary job with the procurator’s office. They seem to have a clerk in every corner.” He explained about the hunt for the missing brothers. “But if I hear of anybody who needs a good man, I’ll mention your name.”

  The smile was pathetically grateful. “Thank you, sir. They can find me at Albanus’s School for Young Gentlemen. We’re in the southwest corner of the Forum every morning. Reading, writing, and mathematics as standard; Greek, logic, and rhetoric by special arrangement. In the meantime I’ll spread the word about your tax men. And if I hear of anybody who needs a good doctor, I’ll tell them you’ll be available shortly.”

  Ruso grinned. “Thank you.”

  “You will be careful, won’t you, sir? People can turn very nasty when there’s money involved.”

  Ruso’s smile faded as he watched Albanus walk away down the street. He had always felt vaguely responsible for the head injury that had ended Albanus’s career in the army, but at the moment he barely had the resources to look after himself and Tilla, let alone employ a clerk he didn’t need. It was unlikely they would ever work together again, and he suspected both of them would be the poorer for it.

  8

  Tilla was eating upstairs with the new mother. Down in the dining room, Valens poked at the wick on the lamp with the sharp end of his spoon. The flame rose higher. He wiped the spoon on the couch, seemingly unaware of the oily streak it left behind. He poured himself another generous helping of Ruso’s wedding-present wine while Ruso helped himself from the platter of salmon that the boy had just fetched from the inn around the corner.

  “This is the life!” Valens observed, adjusting the cushions behind him before lifting his feet onto the couch. “Just us chaps together. It’s a pity you’ve got to rush off to Verulamium in the morning. You know”-here he took a mouthful of salmon and carried on talking around it-“sometimes I miss the old place back in Deva.”

  Ruso licked the overspiced sauce from the spoon. “Didn’t we spend most of our time in the old place looking for ways to get out of it?”

  “Ah, Ruso,” said Valens, “how I’ve missed your delightfully glum presence.” He grinned. “I never thought I’d say this, but it’s more fun with you around.” Seeing Ruso’s surprise he added, “It’s an honor to tend the great and the powerful, but frankly it’s not very entertaining.”

  Ruso took another swig of wine and marveled at how Valens’s life must have changed if this evening was his idea of fun. He said, “I ran into Albanus this afternoon.”

  “We should have invited him,” said Valens. “I didn’t think.”

  Ruso was about to say, “He’s looking for a job,” and then considered what it might be like to work for Valens and kept quiet.

  If Tilla were here, she would be hinting that this was the time to ask about the mysterious absence of Serena.

  “So,” said Valens in a tone that implied he was about to say something that had been on his mind for a while. “Women, eh?”

  “Women,” agreed Ruso, hoping Valens would get to the subject of Serena without an
y embarrassing prompting.

  “Tell me, what do your family make of Tilla?”

  Perhaps he was approaching the topic by a roundabout route. “Some of them quite like her,” he said. “The rest are somewhere between horror and resignation.”

  “Ah,” said Valens. “Well, as long as you’re happy.”

  “Mm.” Ruso glanced down at his cup. “Pass the jug over, will you?”

  Valens refilled his own cup before complying. Eyeing his old friend over the top of the jug he said, “What do women want, exactly?”

  Ruso felt a faint twinge of alarm. This was not supposed to happen. Valens had always been the man with the answers. “You’re asking me?”

  “Well, you married two of them. You must know something.”

  Ruso watched the stream of wine cascading into the cup and pondered the question. “Tilla wants to settle down and have children,” he said. He was about to ask what Serena wanted when Valens said, “And Claudia?”

  Ruso pondered that for a moment. “I tried asking her once.”

  “And?”

  “She said it was obvious.”

  “If it were obvious,” said Valens, “surely you wouldn’t have been asking?”

  “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “And then?”

  “She told me I’d just proved her point.”

  Valens frowned. “So what was her point?”

  The wicker chair creaked as Ruso leaned back in it. “I don’t know.” He made a careful attempt to sound casual as he asked, “What about Serena?”

  Valens appeared to ponder this for a moment, then said, “Well, whatever it is, I can’t do much about it if she isn’t here, can I?”

  9

  As Ruso lifted the covers and fell into Valens’s spare bed, it dawned on him that not only had he eaten too much, but that he and Valens must have drained the amphora deeper than he had realized. From where he lay, his wife now appeared to be clutching a glass vial in one hand and tiptoeing around the bed with the exaggerated gait of a slave about to deceive a master in a silly comedy.