by Ruth Downie
“Because it’s true,” he told her, wondering himself.
“And are you telling me that you—?”
“Me? Of course not!” He slipped into the denial before she could define the question. He had never done anything experimental, but there had been times when, left alone, he might have extended a postmortem examination just a little beyond what was strictly necessary. “It’s not only immoral, it’s illegal.” Mercifully he had rarely been left alone with temptation. But his old colleague Valens, he was certain, possessed the right combination of curiosity and insensitivity to drive him further. Although not to the extreme of purchasing bodies to dissect. Once you went down that route, there was no telling where it would end. “At least this one was safely dead.”
She said, “If you think that will make anything better, husband, you are insane. If this idea gets out, nobody will trust us to go near them.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why we need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, and that people know it’s nothing to do with us.”
“That is why,” she told him, “we need to tell the neighbors a good story before they start guessing. Kleitos was in debt, and somebody put that poor man there to show him what would happen to him if he did not pay. That is why he ran away. Yes?”
“Yes,” he said, seeing the sense of it. “That’s exactly why.” And for all he knew, perhaps it was.
18
Accius looked up from his venerable desk. “Ruso! I was about to send for you. I’ve just had some very disturbing news.” This was not a good start. Ruso, who had come hoping to discuss a loan, found himself having to respond to “What’s all this about a body?”
“There was a dead man outside the doctor’s rooms yesterday, sir,” he said, wondering how Accius had heard. “But it’s been dealt with.”
“I know it’s been dealt with,” Accius snapped. “My men had him collected and taken out for cremation this morning. What the hell did you think you were doing? This is Rome, man. Surely you don’t imagine you can hide a body in a barrel and dump it in a back street and get away with it?”
“We didn’t dump him, sir. He was dumped on us. The caretaker’s wife reported it, and he was taken away.”
“Well, not far enough.” The tribune glared at him for a moment, then said, “This is embarrassing, Ruso. The householder where the barrel was found this morning refused to move it, so my men threatened him with a fine for leaving rubbish in the street. He went to his patron, who happens to be a senator, and the senator’s office put in a complaint about my men to me.”
Accius paused, allowing the full extent of this complicated humiliation to sink in. “The senator’s office then made some enquiries about where the thing had come from,” he continued, “and they were told it was put there by some bartender just across the street from Trajan’s baths. I sent my men to talk to him and he blamed the new doctor who’s just moved in next door. There can’t be two of you.”
“No, sir. It is me. But I didn’t—”
“Meanwhile the bartender has also complained to his patron about my men’s attitude, and who do you think his patron turns out to be?”
Ruso suppressed a sigh. “Horatius Balbus, sir.”
“Exactly. Horatius Balbus who gave you a job after I recommended you. Horatius Balbus upon whom I am attempting to make a good impression.”
There was no choice but to apologize, even though it was hardly Ruso’s fault if Sabella’s husband had failed to deal with the body properly and Accius’s men were rude to people.
“So now I’ve told him you can explain what’s going on, but I’m buggered if I know how.”
Ruso scratched one ear. “So am I, sir.”
“Well, you must have some ideas. Try harder.”
Ruso had spent the earlier part of the morning doing his best not to have any ideas at all, and to dismiss any that had popped up unbidden. Mara had been fractious and Tilla had barely spoken to him. She had not shut the bedroom door properly when she took the bowl in there to wash, and he had glimpsed her staring down at her scarred right arm as if it belonged to someone she did not much like. Then she shuddered and clamped it behind her back before dipping the cloth back in the bowl and wringing it out with one hand to wash her face.
Afterward, there’d been varicose veins to be examined and rebandaged. A small boy had needed a cobnut extracted from his nose, while the pregnant teenager Ruso had frightened the other day consulted Tilla about something so womanly that their discussion had to be conducted in whispers in the kitchen. Then Balbus had sent one of his plumbers to have a cut stitched. After that Ruso had needed to hurry across to one of the suppliers Kleitos had recommended to replenish his supplies of fleawort to make cooling plasters, and poppy tears, and sulfur for treating skin complaints. Now he needed to borrow some money and get down to the auctions before all the best slaves had been sold.
“Well?” Accius demanded. “How the hell did it come to this?”
Ruso summarized the story of the barrel and Tilla’s discovery and the fact that the caretaker whose wife ran the bar next door had arranged to have it taken away. “That was the last we heard of it, sir. I’d assumed he’d called in some undertakers. I could follow it up if you like. In fact it would be useful to know if someone’s identified him.”
“Fortunately, that’s not our problem.”
“I know, sir. But relatives of missing people keep turning up at the door to ask.”
“Send them out to the undertakers. They deal with unidentified bodies all the time. I believe they keep lists. If you worked in street cleaning you’d find it’s not as uncommon as you seem to think.”
Ruso was hoping they had come to the end of the subject when Accius added, “Although the barrel is rather odd.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Technically, it’s up to you to keep the street tidy in front of your house. Not get your wife to ask somebody else to do it.” He sighed. “We can hardly fine your landlord, either, because the landlord is…”
“Horatius Balbus, sir.” The man who owned fourteen apartment blocks and upon whom a good impression needed to be made.
Accius turned to the clerk standing behind him. “Make a note that when we find out who left that barrel outside the doctor’s rooms, we’ll prosecute.”
The clerk said, “Do you want someone to make enquiries, sir?”
“Absolutely not,” Accius told him. “We’ve wasted enough time on this already.” He returned his attention to Ruso. “Anything else?”
This was clearly not a good time to be asking for money. But he had promised Tilla some help around the house, and at least the first part of his speech would—he hoped—put Accius in a better mood. “Two things, sir. The first one concerns Horatius Balbus’s daughter.”
That made him sit up. “Horatia? What about her?”
“When I called to see her father yesterday she asked if you’d sent me with a message.”
“You’ve seen her?”
Ruso was relieved to see the lines of Accius’s perpetual scowl soften a little.
“What did you say?”
“I said no, sir.”
The scowl returned. “Damn. If only I’d known. What else did she say?”
“She hopes you’re well, and she’s looking after the bracelet. She seemed very pleased with it.”
Accius’s face shifted into an unusual shape, and Ruso tried to remember if he had ever seen him look cheerful before. “Excellent. I bought it in Britannia, you know. If you see her again, tell her I’m enjoying the book. And don’t forget to ask if there’s any message back.”
Ruso had been unaware of Accius’s interest in reading until now, despite sharing a long sea voyage with him. He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to, sir. I was told by her father afterward that I wasn’t supposed to speak to her.”
The cheerful expression faded. “Quite right. Horatia is a respectable young lady. She can’t be expected to talk to just anyb
ody. What else?”
Ruso’s rehearsal of this conversation had begun with Accius asking how things were going over at the surgery. Now, adrift from his imagined starting point, he needed to turn the tribune’s mind to money without making it look as if he were asking for any. “Sir, I need your advice on something.”
“If it’s quick.”
“Now that I’m covering a full practice, I need a slave or two to help out.”
“Of course. Ask my housekeeper if she knows anyone she can recommend.”
Ruso sounded the words “Thank you, sir,” while desperately trying to imagine what Valens would have done to charm Accius into offering more cash than was needed, with no rush to repay it. But Valens was back in Britannia with the Legions, and Ruso was on his own.
“I’m a busy man, Ruso. I thought you only wanted two things?”
“It’s the money, sir,” he said, abandoning any attempt at subtlety. “I’m sure the practice brings in a decent income, but—”
“You’re asking me for money?”
He braced himself. “A loan, sir.”
“Why didn’t you say so? You said you were asking for advice.”
“I was working my way around to it, sir.”
“I haven’t got time to sit here while you work your way around to things. Horatius Balbus is expecting us at any moment.”
He turned to his clerk, but before he could speak the clerk whispered, “A word, sir?” and Ruso was excluded from a muttered conversation.
When they had finished the clerk stepped back. Accius said, “You can’t take on a temporary post and then use it as security for a loan, Ruso. Kleitos will be back before long, and then you won’t have the income from the practice to repay me, will you?”
Accius knew nothing about money, but unfortunately it seemed he had the sense to listen to someone who did. Ruso cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that Doctor Kleitos will be coming back, sir.”
“What? That wasn’t him in the barrel, was it?”
“No, sir. But he’s cleared everything of value out of his house, including most of the furniture. We think he may have been in debt.”
Accius blinked. “He’s gone for good? And did you tell Horatius Balbus that his man ran away just before somebody was found murdered outside?”
“His steward came and asked about it, sir, so he must know.”
“But this alters everything! Surely you thought to warn him personally—and you should have told me—that his man was mixed up in some sort of unsavory goings-on?”
“I did try to tell him about the body, but—”
“Holy gods, Ruso! What do you think I invited you to Rome for?”
“I’ve been waiting to be told, sir,” said Ruso, hoping he was at last about to find out what a Good Man did.
“I wanted you here,” said Accius, as if he was talking to a small child, “to help me deal with delicate situations. I thought that was clear.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“And now you’ve landed in the middle of one and you didn’t even notice it, let alone deal with it!”
Ruso cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to get either of us involved in somebody else’s difficulties, sir.”
Accius sighed. “Well, we’re involved in them now. We’d better find something sensible to say to Balbus. And if we see Horatia, leave the talking to me.”
19
It was like being a small boy who had got into a fight. Adults asked for your account of the affair, and then sent you to wait outside while they discussed what should be done about it. Now Ruso was being called back in to Horatius Balbus’s study to be told what had been decided by the adults, even though one of them was several years his junior.
“My young friend tells me,” announced Balbus from behind his elaborately carved desk, “that you are a resourceful and intelligent man. When I met you, that was my impression too.”
Ruso bowed his head in what he hoped looked like a respectful silence.
“Which leaves us both wondering,” Balbus continued, “why you didn’t notice that my freedman is in some sort of trouble. Or didn’t you think it was important enough to mention?”
Ruso looked up. “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Accius said, “Horatius Balbus is very concerned for the welfare of Doctor Kleitos.”
And doubtless Accius was concerned for the welfare of his courtship of Balbus’s daughter, who was nowhere to be seen. On the walk over Ruso had wondered if he should ask Accius if he knew he had competition, but it hardly seemed the right time.
“My steward tells me Kleitos’s father is long dead,” put in Balbus. “And now it turns out the message saying he’d gone to visit him was delivered by some street brat that nobody can identify. I want to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“But I’ve promised that you’ll find out,” put in Accius, shooting a glance that Ruso interpreted as telling him to shut up.
“This all looks,” said Balbus, “as if someone’s trying to intimidate me.”
Ruso, sworn to silence about the theriac, looked at Accius for a clue as to how to proceed.
“Well?” said Accius.
Apparently he was now expected to speak. “The neighbors suggested he might be in debt, sir. We thought perhaps he was the one who was being intimidated.”
Balbus raised one hand and beckoned over his shoulder to the slave who was standing in the corner behind him clutching a note tablet. “Is Kleitos in debt?”
The man stepped forward and bowed. “The last time we checked, he was making a good living, sir.”
“You see?” said Balbus, as if Ruso had accused him of negligence. “I would have known. My clerk helps with his accounts.”
Accius said, “So if he isn’t in debt, why has he run?”
“Because someone’s threatened him, sir?” Ruso suggested, incurring a glare from Accius.
Balbus was running one hand over his bald head. “My man’s gone,” he mused. “If anybody knows where or why, they’re not saying. And whoever sent that message was trying to stop me from looking for him.” He leaned out over the desk and yelled, “Firmicus?”
“Perhaps he sent the message himself, sir,” Ruso suggested, deliberately not looking at his patron. “The note he sent to me said the same thing—he was going away to visit his father. Your steward saw it. He can confirm the handwriting. Perhaps Kleitos doesn’t want to be found.”
The tone of “We’ve known each other twenty years! Why would he leave, after everything I’ve done for him?” took Ruso by surprise. Horatius Balbus sounded genuinely upset.
Accius’s slave joined them outside and followed at a respectful distance. They were at least a hundred paces away from the house before Accius spoke. “Well, that was awkward.”
Ruso said, “Sorry, sir.”
“You should be. Up till now I was making a decent impression.”
In the past few weeks Ruso had imagined all sorts of duties that a Good Man might be called upon to perform, but facilitating marriages had never been one of them.
Accius was still talking. “Balbus needs to know what’s happened to his freedman. And don’t tell me you don’t have any ideas about what’s going on, because I don’t believe you.”
For a brief moment Ruso considered asking for a private audience safely away from eavesdroppers, and confiding his suspicions about Kleitos’s secret human dissections to Accius. But Accius was a politician, not a doctor. He would understand even less than Tilla had. “I think it’s possible Kleitos managed to conceal the real state of his affairs from his patron, sir. The neighbors have mentioned debt collectors. And his note to me had a warning that I should be careful who to trust.”
“Really? Why didn’t you say so?”
Ruso cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure who I could trust to say it to, sir.”
“Jupiter’s bollocks!” Accius flung both hands into the air in exasperation. “This is ridicul
ous. I can’t insist to Balbus that we know his own man’s finances better than he does without some sort of proof. Why didn’t you at least take a proper look at the body? We need to know exactly what we’re involved in here.” He paused. “You don’t think Kleitos did away with him, do you?”
“Nobody’s suggesting that, sir.” At least, he hoped they weren’t. It was even less plausible than the debt story, but if it spread it would destroy any remaining confidence in the practice. “I didn’t examine the body because I would have been late for an appointment,” he said, adding, “with Horatius Balbus. By the time I got back it had gone.”
“And now it’s been cremated,” said Accius, stating this fact with considerably less approval than he had shown earlier this morning, although with no more concern for the deceased.
They turned a corner to find a slave in a familiar tunic hurrying toward them. Accius paused to read the message the slave handed over, then sent him home.
“It seems this bartender caretaker person has confessed about the disposal business,” he said, snapping the tablet shut and handing it to the slave who was accompanying them. “He’s Balbus’s man, so I imagine Balbus will have plenty to say to him about it. As I could have told everyone myself if I’d been consulted, the undertakers aren’t contractually obliged to collect stray bodies on the same day unless they’re notified before the tenth hour. Which is rather annoying, since their headquarters is only just down the road outside the Praenestina gate. Apparently half the staff who would have fetched it were busy questioning somebody’s slaves, and the rest were out of town organizing a crucifixion.”
“Ah.” Since questioning of slaves was routinely done under torture, the staff must have been very busy indeed.
“A deeply distasteful business, undertaking,” Accius observed, voicing Ruso’s own thoughts. “Not the sort of people one wants to mix with. Anyway, the bartender chap told his slaves to roll the barrel somewhere around the back and hide it with their own stores, but the slaves were so frightened of having it outside their bedroom overnight that they waited until it was getting dark and shifted it onto somebody else’s patch, just to get rid of it. Unfortunately, they were seen.”